Each of us forms our own opinion about the world and our possibilities in it. We are convinced that we know what is and what is not possible...
It often happens that these views are not ours. We have taken them from people in our environment, they are personal experiences of our parents, teachers, authorities. We believed them. What's more, we follow them. It's our navigation system - "autopilot". This "autopilot", to which we often do not even pay attention, guides us through life. It takes us along safe, familiar, tried and tested paths. It's reliable. But it doesn't think, it doesn't decide, it doesn't innovate. He sticks to what he knows and has been proven to work, to be certain.
And that's really amazing - proven by practice, it costs us almost no effort and energy. It just has two little catches. Autopilot only works reliably when we want to get to where we've always been. Think of it as a route home from work. A hundred times you've walked it, a hundred times you've driven it. You can be anywhere in your mind and still arrive safely at your destination. Often we don't even remember which way we went or drove. We are only awakened from our reverie by the voice of a colleague, his greeting, and we realise that we are back at work.
Silva is a dynamic person, reliable with a great sense of duty. She is a mother of two children, an adult son (25 years old) and a teenage daughter (12 years old). Her husband runs a business and she helps him. She oversees the bookkeeping and if she needs to go somewhere and do something, she will do it. She loves him. She is a co-owner of a real estate agency herself. She handles marketing and sales. She enjoys it. She also has a big house to take care of. They're in the process of making some necessary repairs. She's overseeing them. Then there's the garden. Daddy's been taking a lot of her energy lately. He's been angry at the world since Mummy died suddenly six months ago. And Silva? She can't anymore. She's tired, and yet she won't sleep without the pill. Even though she's surrounded by people, she's all alone. No one can help her... Perhaps... if her mother were here... Silva is - as you can see - a very capable person, talented, hardworking. She takes care of everything and everyone. She's really unbeatable at it. And she feels good about it. The only flaw is that she's exhausted...
Silva has a number of good habits. It could go on like this forever, "but" nothing must change. He's not allowed to enter the game no contingency, no change. But then life wouldn't be life. We have our limits. In such a case, it is up to us to take the "steering" back into our own hands. It's logical, but honestly, are we doing it? More often than not, we have adopted a different habit. We begin to grumble: imagine you are walking down a familiar street, your mind preoccupied with what lies ahead today. You're having another busy day. Perhaps you are preoccupied with how to get everything done or how to succeed in a difficult conversation with a colleague or boss. Suddenly! Bang!! You fall to the ground. Just yesterday, when you were walking down here, the sidewalk was fine. And today? There's a couple of cobblestones taken out. Just a hole. And you? In it, of course. Possibly with a sprained ankle. Quite possibly you were just scared. Most of us start bitching about other people's messiness, other people's shenanigans. Blaming others or feeling sorry for ourselves is easier than admitting the fact that I was "absent-minded." That I used to leave everything on my "autopilot". I've simply stopped seeing reality. And it's changed... That's all? No, it just requires my full attention and creativity. No matter what anyone should or shouldn't have done or didn't do, the fact remains that it's up to me to get out of the hole. To take care of myself if I don't want to be a victim of the circumstances.
The death of her mother and worrying about her father added another "backpack" to Silva's back. It's no wonder this nearly 50-year-old woman is falling under her load. She doesn't see it, yet. She cares about everyone and everything. Who cares about her?
We see the world as we are, not as it is...
When new information reaches us, our brain usually starts to act like a "cop". It immediately starts to examine it and compare it with our previous experiences and conclusions. If the information fits, it suits us, it is accepted - without evidence. We can get excited about it. Once it's an idea or information that sticks out, we start to fight it. It becomes our enemy and is banished. Often even the strongest evidence won't help. As a rule, our brains don't like unexplained and unknown things. They unsettle it, cost it energy and effort. So it needs time. That's why some of our habits become obsolete. Figuratively speaking, we don't update our "autopilot" and it drives reliably but according to outdated maps. No wonder then that we sometimes find ourselves at a dead end and we don't know how we got here... We are trapped.
Silva is a housekeeper, a cleaner, a businesswoman, a saleswoman, an assistant in her husband's company, a mother, a gardener, a construction supervisor for house repairs, a caregiver to her dad, a lightning rod, a counselor to her husband, a confessor to her daughter and a teacher, a cultural officer for her friends, an organizer of work and non-work parties, events.... She is never, truly never alone. Rest? She can't even remember when she had a moment to herself. Doing nothing? No way... It's forbidden.
If we rely only on our experience, on autopilot, we will simply stop getting what we want from life. Silvia's strategy, her habits - unless she decides to update them - lead to burnout, exhaustion. Stronger sleeping pills, more coffee might delay that moment...
This is a continuation of an earlier article: Are you overworked? Change your habits (published 25.7.2025 on gnews.cz)
This article was published with the kind permission of of the magazine Sphere
casopis-sfera.cz / gnews.cz-HeK
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