The alarm on your phone goes off. It's another day.
You just want to go back to sleep, back to the unconscious state where you don't have to worry about the reality of this demanding life.
Tempted to snooze the alarm so you could get another 10 minutes of this escape.
Yes, reality feels like this nagging child poking at your shoulder annoyingly craving for your attention while you're sound asleep enjoying your cruise of dreams.
Extend this concept of sleep to your life as a whole.
Don't you feel like your whole life is just you being asleep, trying to run away from the reality?
You're still in bed looking at your phone, expecting notifications on your lock screen. This time around, no notification.
You opened up Instagram.
Your eyes are bombarded with all these colourful images of people's lives. You keep scrolling as you're subconsciously hooked to see more of these images. It makes you feel connected, you feel like you're socializing with these people.
Dopamine rush.
You check the time, an hour has gone by. Oh damn, where did the time go? You were unconscious.
There's a lot of instances where this unconscious passivity happens in your life, at varying scale. From mindlessly checking on social media to doing work without feeling any fulfillment just to pay the bills.
At the end of the day, you go to bed feeling exhausted and dread not to wake up the next day repeating the same routine.
There's nothing wrong with the notion of routine, but a routine that is not consciously decided by you, leaves a question mark to your position as the driver of your own life.
If you're not deciding for yourself, others will decide for you.
The mindless scrolling on social media is pervasive in our everyday live. The algorithm of the social platform decides for you on what you should see and consume instead of you deciding for yourself on consuming the kind of content you are truly passionate about.
Now that you realize you have been letting others decide your life for you all this while, you feel this sense of injustice to your freedom. You feel irritated. So how do you take back the steering wheel and reclaim the driving seat ?
It is simple, yet challenging. Like fighting yourself from the temptation of snoozing your alarm in the morning. This is how you reclaim your life:
Every single action that you're about to take, tell yourself the reason why you're doing it.
That's it.
Simple, yet how many of us actually practice this inquisitive habit?
For instance, when you’re in the grocery store looking for snacks to munch on during your work break. Tell yourself you’re looking for a snack because you need a quick energy boost to fuel up your energy for being productive.
With this reason in mind, you are more likely to opt for a more organic and nutrient-filled banana than a packet of preservative-laden potato chips.
Every time you do this, you'll discover that some things are not worth doing because they are not aligned with the values that you hold for a fulfilled life.
Then, you make a turn from that action with your mental steering wheel in the moment, and actually decide for yourself what you ought to be doing instead.
The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates
An intentional life is definitely an examined life
Remember this — You are always asleep, until you step back and ask yourself the conscious-awakening question to what you are doing right now: Why?