The fact is that the majority of our thoughts and actions are on autopilot. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. Our habits, routines, impulses, and reactions carry us through our lives so we don’t have to stop and think about it every time we wipe our ass or start a car.
The problem is when we’re on autopilot for so long that we forget we’re on autopilot. Because when we’re not even aware of our own habits, routines, impulses, and reactions, then we no longer control them. Whereas a person with self-awareness is able to exercise a little meta-cognition and say, “Hmm… every time my sister calls me and asks for money, I end up drinking a lot of vodkas.
A lot of us are just automatons. We’re born with a set of routines, routines that we’ve been conditioned into. We don’t know how to exercise some meta-cognition, so we just go through the motions. This is why we need a little help, a little meta-cognition.
We need a little help in our lives. When we’re so used to routines, routines that we’ve been conditioned into that we don’t even know we have a problem with, we need a little help to look around and say, Hmm… every time my sister calls me and asks for money, I end up drinking a lot of vodkas.
If we had to go back and check it out, we know it’s not like it’s a problem. We can get away with it, but we cant.
To do this we need to take a minute to look at ourselves and say, Hmm… every time my sister calls me and asks for money, I end up drinking a lot of vodkas.
I don’t see how we can do this. It’s basically like we have a problem… We have to be able to think “Oh, this is not the time for this, it’s the time to do something about it”. We can stop by the phone, but we cant.It depends on how you go about doing away with this.
So, what’s the deal with this? It’s not like you’re just going to stop, you know, doing some drugs and then not paying the rent. That would be bad. It’s more like you have to stop doing something that’s getting in the way of your life. Like moving into a new apartment. Now you’re living in your car. Your apartment is in the same city. You go to the city and you see all the new apartments.
The problem with going out and buying a new apartment is that you are essentially buying a new life. And your life is, well, just one big chunk of space where you are paying rent. If your life is simply the space to make rent then that’s fine. But if you are living in a new apartment and that space is your life, well, that’s not what you’re living in.