alive, but not really living

I remember some days growing up when my dad would come and I'd ask him about his day.

He'd sit there and think for a second and then say, "ya know, I actually couldn't tell you."

Humans have gotten very efficient at living life - maybe even too much so.

We drive home from work after a grueling day and then don't even remember anything from the drive home.

We make our coffee while scrolling the news on our phones.

Our habits become second nature, and we do them without any kind of conscious effort.

Your brain becomes great at functioning on autopilot.

Great, right?

It may bring ease in the moment, but once you're sucked in, it becomes a tough cycle to get out of.

I think that 90–95% of our world is asleep.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone - it's built that way.

This world wants to keep you asleep and unconscious - influencing you while you're in a susceptible state.

As long as you're following along, you're probably not living the actual life that you want to be living. And everyone deserves to live the life they want to live.

But before we get to that, there are a few things that you need to understand about your brain and autopilot.

Your brain is a record of the past

Your brain is a pattern-recognizer.

It tries to guess what comes next with every piece of info that gets processed.

The more you're exposed to certain stimuli, the less effort it actually takes to recognize them.

A few examples: driving home from work, going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and riding a bike.

Some things are great to have on autopilot.

It doesn't serve you to pay attention to each step that you're taking while you're running - it's better that you can focus on other things.

But I know many people who put their days on autopilot - like my dad in the story earlier.

When you go through the motions, every day starts to look the same.

Autopilot is unconscious action.

Autopilot can also not be achieved unless you've done these activities before.

Living on autopilot implies that you are living unconsciously and existing in the past.

Living in the past creates a predictable future

You wake up each morning with a clean slate - you can do anything that you want with it.

Yet, when we default to living our day on autopilot, we already know what's going to happen.

There's no room for anything new to happen, no room for magic, and no room for living.

The same events and emotions are bottled up, but in different capsules.

It's like opening up a pill organizer and taking your meds for the day. There will be some slight differences, but most of the time they're not even noticeable.

I could tell you what your day is going to be like three months from now if I knew what you'd been doing for the past one.

That might seem a bit extreme, but it's true.

It only takes about 3 weeks to develop a strong habit - so by then the routine of your life has become locked in.

There's no way out of living in the past unless you wake up and change something.

Opening your eyes again

It's important for humankind that we all live consciously.

Every person is here to manifest something.

But to answer the Universe's call, you need to be conscious, alive, and ready to go.

Break your routine

The easiest way for us to get out of the autopilot cycle is to simply break our routine.

Your routine is what allows you to function unconsciously. It lets you work fully through past experiences.

So what if we messed with our routines?

Breaking them doesn't have to mean ignoring them completely.

It means that we do it differently enough that we have to pay attention to what we're doing.

It could look like brushing your teeth with the opposite hand, taking a completely different route home from work, or shopping at a different grocery store.

Or it could look like deciding to blow off work and go for a hike you've never done, painting your house, or walking around backwards for the day.

The possibilities are limitless, but each one brings a flood of consciousness to our days.

If you've never done these things before, you have no choice but to focus on the tasks at hand. If you don't, you'll be lost and might make some costly mistakes.

But, that's what being alive is.

This will start to wake you up, moment by moment, bringing you fully into the present.

Use your attention consciously

Any attention that you do not consciously direct will be bought and used against you.

Companies have paid millions of dollars for just 30 seconds of your attention.

Is there anything else that could be worth $60 million an hour?

That's how powerful your attention is.

But right now, it's easier (and usually more enticing) to open our phones and scroll rather than open a book or go for a walk.

We don't have any idea of the power of the one thing that is truly ours.

Consuming is a very unconscious activity - that's why it's known as mindless scrolling.

Most people couldn't tell me more than a couple of posts they saw, even though they had probably seen hundreds of them. I'm one of them.

It boils down to being a great hit of dopamine without any kind of effort.

This also means that we become addicted to being unconscious.

Practice

Creating a mindfulness practice is crucial.

Without knowing how to be conscious, you cannot practice consciousness in your life.

When we boil it down, all we have left is our awareness, attention, and ability to observe - consciousness.

As you become aware in these short bouts of time, you'll start to realize that they carry over into your every day.

You don't struggle to pay attention to your friend talking.

You can feel at every point on your body that the wind is softly rushing by.

Life becomes more vivid, and you realize how adrift you've actually been.

You'll want to live consciously throughout your day because you now see how beautiful the tiny pieces of life really are.

And that's what it means to be alive.

Start today.

Got 10 extra minutes until you need to leave your house?

Instead of scrolling on your phone, close your eyes and pay attention to your breath.

That’s all for today.

This is a topic that really has a special place in my heart - I don’t think that the world will get better until we start waking up to the nature of our reality.

But, slowly, we will get there.

With that being said, if there’s someone that you think would benefit from this, please share with them.

Until next time, with love,

Noah