A Newfound Comfort with my Recorded Voice Shows that a Greater Self-Acceptance Comes with Age

As a traveler who is currently too occupied with work to travel much, watching a few travel vlogs helps to quench the thirst. But as I watch these vloggers' well-polished recordings of their day-to-day in far-flung parts of the world, I often cringe at the effort that went into editing. In particular, given that they spend so much time talking into the camera, splicing and reviewing the output will inevitably take repeated listening of their own voice on recordings. For someone who remembers growing up hating my own voice through anything but my own ears, that effort does not sound like a pleasant experience at all.

So when I decided to record a small video demonstration of a mosquito repellent dispenser as a side gig, I was unsurprisingly hesitant. Showing the product in video is fine, but it is impossible to explain its intricacies and benefits to potential customers without having to speak to the camera at length. And given the inevitable "um" and "uhh" to gather thoughts, I have no choice but to listen back at my recorded voice, finding the fillers and unnecessary phrases to produce a clean version that most directly elaborates on the product without turning off the audience.

It was quite a surprise, then, that I listened back to what I said in the video and felt, well, nothing. No sense of the usual cringe that my voice sounds different from the "usual" and no desire to rush through the editing so that I can get the task over with. Instead, I simply listened to the recording, as if I would listen to the recording of anyone else. By the end of the exercise, I started to wonder whether this newfound nonchalance toward my own recorded voice may open up new possibilities, from starting my own vlog to taking a crack at podcasting.

But a bigger question is why the definite cringe of the past simply disappeared. Yes, it is a possibility that my voice and even auditory functions have changed over the years. Those changes, if possible, would be quite subliminal and trivial. A bigger change may simply be the disappearance of an expectation of who I am, a narrow definition of what I am supposed to sound like. As I get older, a sense of the idealistic image of the self, unexplainable in its origin, simply gives way to a greater acceptance that I could and should be many different things under different circumstances.

Within this greater flexibility of self-expectations, comfort with my recorded voice is just one phenomenon out of many. My teenage self had many expectations of myself: articulate, clear-eyed about the future, impeccable in social relationships, and singular in the pursuit of success, whether professional or personal. And for each expectation, there was a clear definition. Perhaps some of these would be difficult to put into exact verbal terms, but at least in my personal observation, deviation from the ideal would have been obvious, like my voice on recordings.

At 36, it seems all of these expectations are no longer part of everyday conscience. Maybe my teenage self would justify the nonchalance in my ability to achieve some of them. But a bigger reason, from the perspective of my current self, is an increasing realization that the perfection that I expected of myself is simply unattainable, sometimes because I would never acquire the capability to do so, but even more often, the effort required to attain it is simply not worth the anxiety and stress that would certainly complement the effort.

That stance cannot be disparaged as an acceptance of mediocrity. Rather, my current self no longer sees achieving those subjection definitions of "good" as symbolic of some objective "good" of myself as a person. Instead, today there is a greater objective "good": a comfort with who I am today. My past self would have many goals that I gave up and would be envious of others achieving. Many of those goals remain worthy ones. But in the bigger scheme of life, achieving all of those goals is no longer essential for everyday happiness. 

Hearing back on my voice recording, I detect plenty of elements that a past me would have found cringe-worthy. No amount of editing and polishing can hide the occasional grammar mistake and mispronunciation that crop up in my little monologue. But whereas the old me would have seen the lapse in English ability as a flaw, today's me would simply see it as a sign of my identity as a flawed being, with room for improvement but also simple acceptance of the status quo. A bit lacking in dynamism and ambition perhaps, but it is worth that simple joy of self-recognition.