When looking forward to the new year it is usually a time to reflect on the past years and the trajectory of your life in general.
Some years and even decades can go by with the feel of one long day or week. We ask "where did the time go?
This is the result of repetitive tasks done on auto pilot. They say the brain goes on autopilot after you have repeated a task enough times to have it committed to your long-term memory bank. You no longer must have “presence of mind” to perform the task, hence autopilot mode. I stay in awe of our creator. The workings of the mind and body are nothing short of miraculous.
They say this process allows us the mental resources for more complex, new, or novel tasks. We can use these reserved mental resources to grow, develop, and expand. We can perhaps be creative or we can learn something new. We could possibly come up with a new invention. Having the free mental space allows for the ah ha moments while taking a walk, shower, or may I say even on our drive to work. You know what I’m talking about, those cathartic conclusions to those problems that keep you up at night.
But what’s the problem with autopilot mode?
The problem comes in play when we are derelict in our duty of self direction. Autopilot is in fact not being completely present, nobody at home. We sometimes misuse this ability to be absent to our circumstances.
I used to joke with my family that I was going to be off from work on a given day because I was sending in my avatar. My avatar was going to say the right things regardless of how I personally felt. My avatar would be able to grin and bare it when I was no longer able to. My avatar would also be able to regurgitate the answers that were expected regardless of the power and ingenuity of my personal thoughts and ideas.
But as you know it still takes lots of energy to be inauthentic. You have to manage how this replacement or imposter of you does everything, like when to laugh at a joke that is not funny, how to take pride in the monotonous tasks that you were assigned to do, how to give 110% of what is expected which only took a fingertips amount of what you have to offer, how to exist within the confines of another's’ limited vision of you which later becomes the vision you have for yourself due to your own brain washing campaign. The washing away of You.
One can easily lose sight of the duality that we work to maintain as it becomes not only easier to act in a certain way that is expected but to just become what is expected. Quiet the mind and the heart to the point that you could not hear either even if you tried. When you turn off your mind and heart for the purpose of work (or relationships) you are not only absent to them but you are absent to yourself.
Self-abandonment.
It’s okay to temporarily do what you have to do till you can do what you want to do but some of us will spend many years dead to ourselves. We then say our lives or jobs are so stressful. We feel so misunderstood or not cared for. But charity starts at home. When you want to blame circumstances remember circumstances are always changing. But in contrast, how long have you been living inauthentically?
You may send your avatar, but you may soon become jealous as you sit behind the curtain pulling the strings yet never really living. The writer of the script keeps the marriage together for the sake of the kids, keeps the job that pays the bills, spends unearned money to keep a certain image to the world, or has settled for less for any number of good reasons. But this “one” is not living.
This is what creates the pains that require the hidden relief of intoxicating habits like bingeing on social media, reality shows, fast food, gossip, and sometimes so much worse. Yes. Now that you have an outlet for the discomfort of your life you don’t have to make a change, as the discomfort has been assuaged a bit.
In 2020 many of us were forced to be in, or most likely remain in, survivor mode. But some of us were forced to stop our routines and rituals and really be present in our lives as the job and other structures crumbled around us. Some of us became more present due to our losses of material things or even the loss of family members who did not make it.
If you were not directly affected you felt deeply for your fellow man’s cry for equality, to be counted, or to simply be fed. Empathy makes you consider what it would be like living in the shoes of a person whose entire existence may appear to be crumbling, maybe now you found cause to take inventory of your own life. You count your blessing as you may not have experienced the level of loss that you see in the world. But are you sure about that? Have you not been that frog in a pot set raised above subtly increasing flames? Every moment of inauthenticity represents how long you have been a mannequin, dressed for success, staged, attractive, and presentable. Unfortunately, it is life’s greatest pains and pleasures that makes its mark on the timelines of our lives. This is why the bitterness of 2020 has also been our rebirth. Like the phenix from the ashes. Like our resuscitation back to lucidity. Yet many yearn to return to their terminal rest. Let us hope that those who did not find their hearts, minds, and voices in 2020 make these discoveries in 2021.
Let us all commit to really living our lives to the fullest by embracing our authentic selves.
Written by,
Fatima Sparks, Medical Practice Coaching & Consulting
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