I'm going to make a statement that is rather bold - Most people live their entire lives on auto-pilot. They keep living their life day by day, minute by minute operating from the preprogrammed way of being they have been accustomed to. They stop thinking and just run the same preprogrammed scripts over and over and over.
For example: I live in a gated community. Today, as I drove up the mountain to my community there was a backlog of cars and construction vehicles attempting to gain access to the community. I didn't feel like waiting so I grabbed my handy remote and opened the gate. The guy who was first in line figured it out after a minute or two with the keypad that the gate was actually open. He drove through. The arm went down and I pushed the button.
As the arm was going up, the vehicle in front of me, a US Postal Service truck approached the gate. She stopped immediately in front of the opengate, got out of her vehicle and went to the Postal Service open box. Literally...she pulled up to the open gate and stopped right in front of it as though she was seeing the gate was closed! I couldn't believe it...I thought I was seeing things! When she was done keying the Postal Service box to open the gate, she wisked around and was stunned the gate was magically completely open. It took her a minute to realize that she had gotten out of her truck in front of an already open gate. That's auto pilot.
I could spend hours typing up example after example.
This is why many people move through life constantly dealing with the same problems - they are operating on auto-pilot. They aren't even thinking anymore, just blindly and numbly passing through life, following the preset ideas, believes, actions and expectations. This woman expected the gate to be closed so acted as such. She wasn't even "open" (no pun intended) to the gate being open.
It had me think...where in my life am I just living out my already preset notions or expectations? Where in my life and I reactive simply based on how I've always reacted.
Seeing what I saw today I am 100% committed to being open to each experience newly so that I am present for each new opportunity that presents itself in my life. That is what separates people who achieve extraordinary levels of personal and professional success from those who live their life as though they are a caged hamster running on the wheel of life.
Great article and such a true observation. Most people (pronounced sheeple) have resigned themselves to that robotic behaviour out of the fear of what 'others' may think of them, when in reality nobody ever thinks of anybody but themselves. Rather like a catch 22 isn't it? Unless one is willing to 'be' different and think out of the box, one will never even accidentally fall off that hamster wheel.
ReplyDeleteSince reading this post, and hearing you speak on the subject, I too find myself making a conscious effort to become more observant of my own sameness. Thanks for the insight!
Hmm...indeed, most people are living their life on a default setting. The worse is that life is nothing but a chain of circumstances that they have no control over and believe some absolute power outside of them is looking down on them. Then when things look bad, initially you would pout, cry, whine and finally breaking down and accepting that "that's the way things are!, that's the way of the world, learn to take life on its terms..." etc etc. But you know what, exactly!...that's what you get. You get exactly what you are focusing on and how you are flowing your energy. "Man this sucks because my life sucks"...well you know what, you're right. There's no second opinions on that.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is, we do have choices and we don't have to put up or face up to with anything. All we gotta do is learn to flow our energy differently, what we are focusing on most of the time. We can'e blame the media, circumstances, society, the government, your neighbor or even your pet dog because we are suppose to be deliberate creators...not creators by accident, the captains of our ships...and not the passengers. Even if you want more money, you gotta picture, imagine, feel that you already in possession of it.
Because at the end of the day, when you glare in front of the mirror...it's gonna be that person who's ultimately depriving you of your goals and dreams. Yet most people die fearing, regretting that they have not accomplished something big or significant in their lives. I think that's one of the biggest fears people have on their death beds. But yeah, thanks for the intriguing post.