I’m enjoying the new headphones I ordered online last week! I’m using them right now to listen to music as I work on this post. It occurred to me that they are suited to me for a couple of reasons related to my personality as well as my Asperger’s syndrome.
The first thing you have to understand about me is that music helps me concentrate. I’m hypersensitive to all of the sensory input that distracts me from focusing on a task, whether that’s my copyediting work or a project I’m trying to complete for my own enjoyment.
These headphones are the kind that cover my ears, muffling outside sound and allowing me to listen to a soundtrack of music that I know and enjoy. (They aren’t noise-cancelling like the ones my brother has, both because I didn’t want to spend that much on headphones and because if I wore noise-cancelling headphones, my parents might never be able to get my attention when they need me to help with something!) ; )
But being able to listen to music makes a huge difference to me in my ability to work. (I find it also helps me to concentrate when I’m driving.) It’s like it drowns out all of the noise I normally have to deal with, allowing me to keep a narrower focus on what’s in front of me. The only limitation I’ve found is that when I do editing, I usually need to limit myself to music without lyrics, because otherwise the lyrics of the songs slow down my ability to think about the sentence structure and wording of the article I’m editing.
The second reason I’m loving these headphones is that they are bluetooth-enabled, which means that I don’t need to use a cord. And that’s perfect for me, because I’m clumsy. Which I prefer to blame on my Asperger’s syndrome, although it could be that I’m just naturally clumsy anyway. : )
There’s plenty of evidence. About a year ago, I managed to crack the bones of each of my elbows in the space of six months– one when I slipped walking down a single step into our garage, the other when I tripped over my own feet trying to walk up a single step from a parking lot onto the sidewalk. The belt loops on many of my blue jeans are torn because I managed to get them caught on the knobs of kitchen drawers.
And a major factor in needing new headphones was that I kept getting the cord caught on things, causing damage both to the cord itself and to the port where it plugs in to my computer. My desire to use the music as an uninterrupted soundtrack led me to carry my laptop around with me when I needed to go to the door to let the dogs in or out. And my clumsiness ensured that I would get the cord caught on a lamp, yanking the headphones off my head or pulling the plug out of my computer. Now I don’t have to do that anymore! I can leave the computer on a table and walk away, and the headphones will keep on playing!
They say that one of the ways we grow is by understanding and accepting our weaknesses as well as our strengths, and planning for them. I guess I’m happy to be doing that in some small way by using my new cordless headphones.
Land of My Sojourn 