Are you awake?

Have you ever been driving on low sleep, and found yourself driving to your work, or old house? “Crap, where am I going? Oh wow I was driving to my work, it’s Saturday what the...” There are many examples of this, where we slip into a lower state of consciousness and go into autopilot. In “The Power of Habit” they talk about the ways your brain will bury routine tasks deep into the parts of your brain that do not require you to even be fully awake. They tell a story of a man with brain damage causing him to have almost no memory. He’s unable to locate the kitchen in his own house, but he once wandered outside, took a long walk, and returned safely. His walk was so ingrained into his “basal ganglia” that he could do it on autopilot. As we get older, more routine things will become a part of our autopilot system.

I have many stories where in routine, meaningless “conversations” with co-workers I’ll slip in completely ridiculous answers with a straight face. I’ll make reference to my grandson, or talk about driving a school bus, and sometimes the person will nod and smile completely on autopilot, not really listening. They can have a short conversation that’s so routine words are not even registering into their mind. It’s really funny if you can get away with it.

The easiest way to snap out of autopilot is for something completely random to happen. Maybe a friend jumps out of the bushes and scares you for example. We all know the feeling, we get super scared, laugh, then feel this jolt of awakeness. There’s a certain level of awakeness and joy that is associated with being out of autopilot. Think of how children are. They have yet to really develop any autopilot, or develop an ego - they are carefree beings who are completely expressive, curious, and free.

This ‘pure self’ found in children is still inside each of us, but is now buried in layers of self-image, autopilot, and ego. We’re now paralyzed into not being genuine due to fear of being judged by others, or concerns with our self-image or reputation. If a child sees another child he’s curious about, he’ll wobble up to them and without any hesitation say “hi, wanna play?” Now go up to a young man, point to a pretty girl he wants to meet, and tell him to talk to her and watch - his heart rate will increase, adrenaline shoot up, mind flooded with thoughts, excuses, and rationalizations on why he won’t or can’t do it. His ego is shocking him into fearing what will she think, what will others think, what if someone sees me. His entire nervous system is being jolted into the fear of going out of autopilot. 

Think of autopilot like a cast on a broken arm, or a leg brace, at first it aids you, may even make you feel a bit stronger since it’s hard. However if it becomes too thick, or worn too long the arm or leg inside will get weaker, pale, and eventually become barely alive. 

Think of a child like a completely naked soul, and as it grows it starts to develop a cast of autopilot. If the child lives a life of routine, rarely facing it’s fears, or going outside of it’s comfort zone the cast will grow thick and strong, and the self inside will get weak and pale. Character resistance does not occur so the character becomes weak and sensitive.

Weak, pale, pathetic unconscious beings are everywhere. Go to your local walmart and just watch people. Those who are mostly asleep will be more irritated by petty things like long lines, or paying $1 more for something. Their character is soft, and therefore the smallest thing will cause enormous anxiety. Since emotional fluctuations are rare, the smallest emotional changes will sting. They are slaves to their emotions.  The first step in choosing to live a more awakened life is recognizing what behavior will seduce you into slipping into autopilot. Routine, staying in your comfort zone, avoiding resistance, and living a life lacking in motion.

You go to work, have routine politically correct conversations like “Hey joe, how are you? Good. Oh, I’m good. Yeah it’s hot today! Alright Talk to you later” you drive home, and rationalize that you deserve to relax, something you do every single day. You decide to watch TV. Sitting there motionless, you maybe eat something. On the weekend you decide to join some friends for dinner and a movie. You sit in a chair and eat more. Make sure to avoid certain topics of conversation, those will cause scary things to happen like thinking, confrontation with your own views, or maybe even temporary negative emotions. Besides, it will startle the complete stranger next to you. Your food order was wrong, but you don’t want to confront the waitress, that will cause temporary negative emotions in both of you. Not only that it may disturb your friends, who will feel anxious seeing you mention it. You go and sit motionless in the movie, allowing it to stimulate you. You go home and sleep motionless.

In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt talks about the character building qualities that tragedy and hardship have on a person. He talks about how often the worlds most inspiring people have histories of extreme suffering or tragedy. He argues that tragedy alone is not the cause, but it’s the massive perspective shifts that can take place which will give the person a certain level of enlightenment about life and purpose. He tells a story about a successful stockbroker, whose wife cheated on him, violently divorced him, ruined his financial life, took his house and threatened to take the kids. He recalls the extreme heartbreak and stress this had on him. He almost lost everything. In the story the man reflected heavily on his life and found that out of all the things threatened to be taken from him, his children were the only thing that mattered. The reality that his kids could be taken away was so terrifying it forced him to truly appreciate time spent with them. The idea of sacrificing even a moment with his son to work now seems ludicrous. This large perspective shift could only have taken place with an event of this magnitude.

Living above an autopilot state is (probably) a lot of work. It’s not like climbing a mountain where once you’re at the top you sit and enjoy it. It’s like climbing a muddy mountain in the rain, where you will backslide if you slow down, or stop. I have a vivid memory where two weeks after a fun Vegas trip with some friends I was pumping gas around 7:30am.

In Vegas, we had gone out to a club and had a blast. I had been pushing myself out of my comfort zone all weekend, and was in a very awake state. I saw this gorgeous girl talking to this buff black guy, but there's a tiny hint that she wasn't really into it. I moved in behind her and whispered in her ear “If you need me to save you, squeeze my hand” she looks at me and squeezes my hand. She smiles and says “Wow, i have not seen you in years!” - She was seriously drop dead gorgeous and was in some bottle service booth. I pretend to know her and ask the guy if its cool if we catch up. He has a weird look on his face and says “Yeah sure” and walks off.. 5 seconds later he grabs her hand and walks her away.  They were swallowed up in the crowd. I jumped up to see where she was going and ran threw some people. I went up behind her and said “hold on” and literally picked her up in the air and blasted through the crowd. The guy let go. I dropped her and she had a huge smile on her face and said “wow, thank you, who are you!?!??!” We talked for a bit but she was with a large group of girls and was dragged away. Nothing happened but it made for a cool story.

As I was pumping gas I saw a guy at the station who kinda looked like him and it made me think of the story. There was this moment where I almost did not believe my own memory. I had this thought “Uh, wtf did I really do that?” and the idea of doing that again seemed completely terrifying. Deep down I’m naturally a shy and awkward guy, not the type who does things like that. I know I did it though. It was not the memory that was foggy, it was the lack of identification I had with the person in the memory. 

I realized that the two weeks following Vegas I had been playing a lot of xbox, and had discovered the show “how I met your mother.” I had been watching it on the couch and taking naps between episodes. I remember having a savings goal so I did not go out of town either. I was doing mostly nothing. I was slowly moving back into the cast. Where the few days that followed up to the Vegas trip I had been very active, moving about so much the cast cracked freeing me from it’s grip. It’s like when forrest gump puts so much resistance on his leg braces from running they break, allowing him to run faster. After vegas I had slipped back into old habits, gently putting my legs back into the braces.

Facing resistance, violating routine, moving towards what you want despite it sometimes being scary are all ways to stay “awake” - The question is do you want to be?