When You Are Young

When you are young…your hearing is in some ways better than it is ever going to be again.

When you are young, before you accumulate responsibilities, you are freer than most people to choose among all the voices and to answer to the one that speaks most powerfully to who you are and to what you really want to do with your life.

But the danger is that there are so many voices, and they all in their ways sound so promising. The danger is … you do not listen to the inside you or you do not listen to the voice that speaks from outside…but instead listen to the great blaring, boring, banal voice of our mass culture, which threatens to deafen us all by blasting forth that the only thing that really matters about your work is how much it will get you in the way of salary and status…

Frederick Buechner