It was a period when I was consuming every resource in sight like a glutton, desperately chasing peace of mind. Books, videos, quotes, music… No matter what I was doing — reading, walking, eating, or accidentally being racist toward my laundry while sorting it by color — I had music playing in the background at frequencies ranging from 478 to 999 Hz. (By the way, every time I see “Hz,” my brain still insists on reading it as “His Holiness.”) Apparently, it was all supposed to boost my positivity and free me from negative thoughts — what can I say, I was willing to try anything to find a peace of mind that had never once been native to my nature.

At the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking about a question that had been growing inside me: Were there others out there — fellow travelers — who, instead of relaxing while listening to this kind of thing, found themselves more tense than before? People who spent every minute checking their pulse and scanning their own mind, asking, “Am I relaxing yet? Is it working?” Because I was genuinely worried that I might be multiplying my stress levels by constantly interrogating myself: “Have I started feeling positive yet?” “Did I reach positivity, or did I blow right past it and get rerouted without noticing?” My heart rhythm was all over the place during those music-and-meditation sessions.

Honestly, if I’m being real — listening to Ed Sheeran made me feel genuinely happier and more at ease. Maybe my frequency was just naturally tuned to that cheerful ginger’s Hz settings. Who knows?

+ Edit: (Six months later…)

I think I finally got it. Turns out, you find the right frequency when you mentally tell the whole world — and everything in it — to go f*ck itself. It’s not about what you listen to. It’s about what you think. Or rather, what you stop thinking. That was the key, all along.

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If something stayed with you……