“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung
Person1: “Think about if she says yes. You should ask her and talk to her.”
Person2: “But we don’t know, and I’m sure she is not interested”
Person1: “But if we don’t try how will we know”
Person2: “I know. Don’t you remember last time?”
Person3: “You should complete the pending code you were writing.”
Person4: “Think you are in Afghanistan right now. How dangerous it would be?”
Person5: “Will you be ever happy being married to someone for a lifetime? Is that true?”
Person6: “Why Virat’s form is bad for such a long time? He needs to leave the 5th Stump balls.”
Person2: “BTW how did Nietzsche said that life is suffering? Did he read Bhagwat Geeta?”
Person1: “You should open Instagram.”
You must be confused, why these many people are talking such random thoughts which are completely unrelated. This is how my mind looks like psychologically. And these quoted thoughts are less, the actual number is exponentially high. And then there is a Person0 who is listening and contemplating all these thoughts and killing those which he didn’t fancy.
Think of a mind like a factory that constantly generates stories about myself, other people and about the world and it is true that those stories are super-attractive. Sometimes stories are negative too but they are so fascinating, that I drown with it usually.
The problem here is the lack of concentration and focus on what I am doing. These thoughts can come at any time, like when I am in a very important meeting or talking to a very close friend. With the current digital age, we have so much content and knowledge around us that sometimes we forget how our mind which is probably not made for so much data would handle it. This results in a lack of concentration, anxiety, and the worst one which I face is auto-pilot mode.
Our brains have developed an unconscious decision-making system so we can take care of routine tasks. It prevents us from overloading. However, modern life has hijacked our lives—the mechanism that is supposed to protect us is disengaging us from living.
According to the study, we are living on autopilot in the place where we need to pay the most attention: our home. People make decisions—such as what to eat, what to watch on TV, or what to wear—without putting in any thinking. Google is telling us where to go, Zomato is telling us what to eat, Netflix is telling us what to watch and Instagram/Social media takes everything else that is there.
Living on autopilot means leaning towards the most comfortable thinking mode.
The reason for autopilot could be anything, such as we are always on, we are always pleasing others, our routine has become predictable, we believe we are missing out, too much content intake, etc.
Conscious decision-making is slow but has free will in it. We need to take back the driver’s seat and reflect upon why and how we are making decisions.
Just as an exercise, please think when was the last time you sat with yourself and talked about why are you doing what you are doing? When was the last time you asked yourself about the meaning of whatever you are doing? This is one of the self-reflection which everyone should do in this digital age. And as time is passing and everything is becoming digital and content is increasing day by day, we are bound to lose ourselves in infinite scroll and unknown reflexes to open phones which we are not aware of. And this will result in procrastination and other problems which I cannot list in fact.
There are several ways of self-reflection and knowing oneself, and it is up to us which path we want to take. We can meditate regularly, or just ask questions to ourselves, or going beyond the comfort zone, or discovering our emotions, or at least trying to make better decisions.
There are several questions you can ask yourself:
“What thoughts are going through my mind?”
“What am I thinking about?”
“What memories does this feeling evoke?”
“What am I saying to myself under my breath?”
And see just by asking questions, how your life would change. There will be more space for you in your life, more space for creativity, and more focus on any task you do. I am personally trying this but let’s see how much success I will be getting. Or the task is not to be successful but to be happy and conscious.
“The difficulty of the difficulties is self-created, a knot of the ignorance; when a certain inner perception loosens the knot, the worst of the difficulty is over.” – Sri Aurobindo