I love my Autopilot. It’s such a useful tool. For the (comparatively) unimportant things, it’s easy to program. You figure out the optimal way to accomplish something— break it into steps, figure out the best order to do the steps in, what needs to be arranged where and how to facilitate the task, set that up, do it a few times, integrate it into your routine, and there you go. You never have to think about it again.
Friday morning is always when you put the trash out, and you always do it when you go downstairs to make coffee, and the container is always by the garage door in the same place, and it always goes to the same bit of curb between two driveways— too short for anyone to park there, so it’s always available.
Morning is when the Autopilot seems essential. Many days I’d never get out of the house, or even out of bed, if I had to actually think about everything that needs to happen to get me vertical and functional. The Autopilot handles morning ablutions, taking medication, getting caffeine into the bloodstream, making space for inspirational reading, making the bed, making and eating a healthy breakfast, preparing lunches to take along on work days, and the day’s allotted “morning maintenance task” whether it’s watering plants, washing the cat’s water fountain, etc.
On a higher level, the Autopilot orchestrates my week. Saturday is laundry day, Sunday change the linens and wash them, Wednesday night meeting, Friday groceries, every other week (Sunday again) update the financial data— there’s a place for everything, and as long as everything keeps in its place, I don’t have to worry about what I might be forgetting, falling behind on, whatever.
The more of the stuff I hate thinking about, the stuff that makes me anxious, the stuff that Perfect Me™ demands of me, that I can delegate to the Autopilot, the more “in control” I feel. When I feel “in control,” I’m relaxed, the anxiety doesn’t hurt.
You saw what I did there?
Therein lies Part One of the trap, oh, yes.
My lovely Autopilot gets co-opted by my disease. It gives me the illusion of control, feeds that dangerous delusion.
Part Two of the trap is more subtle: The Autopilot enables me to do stuff without thinking about it. In fact, it allows me to do stuff while thinking about other stuff.
This is fine when it’s a case of (for example) winding the 8-day clock or setting out the trash bins. I’m not a zen monk and I don’t aspire to perfect mindfulness of everything I do— tedious little chores may have some cosmic lesson in them, but I’ll forgo it for now. If such lessons are meant to happen, they will do so eventually.
And it’s reasonably fine when the “other stuff” I’m thinking about is ‘good thinking’— something creative, or productive, of pleasant.
But some things I should be more mindful of, if only to hold them in my attitude of gratitude (aka the #attofgrat.) How many people don’t have the privilege of waking in a comfortable bed, with the nutritious food available for a healthy breakfast? How much beauty is there in the day that I’m missing because my mind is elsewhere?
Even more damaging is when the Autopilot frees up my brain, not for good thinking, but for the crazy crap of my disease: Obsessing on The List, worrying about all I’m not getting done, how much worse I have it than imaginary people who don’t have to do these unpleasant, tedious chores and all the other varieties of stinkin’ thinkin’ my jerkbrain can ambush me with.
I still love my Autopilot, but the Program is teaching me it’s a two-edged tool. I’m learning to pay attention to it, and appreciate when it’s helpful, and hit the “stop” button, or abandon it and change up and step outside the script, when it’s not helping.
And trust that my Higher Power is the one in control. Not me.
#attofgrat for the Serenity Prayer.
Morning is when the Autopilot seems essential. Many days I’d never get out of the house, or even out of bed, if I had to actually think about everything that needs to happen to get me vertical and functional. The Autopilot handles morning ablutions, taking medication, getting caffeine into the bloodstream, making space for inspirational reading, making the bed, making and eating a healthy breakfast, preparing lunches to take along on work days, and the day’s allotted “morning maintenance task” whether it’s watering plants, washing the cat’s water fountain, etc.
On a higher level, the Autopilot orchestrates my week. Saturday is laundry day, Sunday change the linens and wash them, Wednesday night meeting, Friday groceries, every other week (Sunday again) update the financial data— there’s a place for everything, and as long as everything keeps in its place, I don’t have to worry about what I might be forgetting, falling behind on, whatever.
The more of the stuff I hate thinking about, the stuff that makes me anxious, the stuff that Perfect Me™ demands of me, that I can delegate to the Autopilot, the more “in control” I feel. When I feel “in control,” I’m relaxed, the anxiety doesn’t hurt.
You saw what I did there?
Therein lies Part One of the trap, oh, yes.
My lovely Autopilot gets co-opted by my disease. It gives me the illusion of control, feeds that dangerous delusion.
Part Two of the trap is more subtle: The Autopilot enables me to do stuff without thinking about it. In fact, it allows me to do stuff while thinking about other stuff.
This is fine when it’s a case of (for example) winding the 8-day clock or setting out the trash bins. I’m not a zen monk and I don’t aspire to perfect mindfulness of everything I do— tedious little chores may have some cosmic lesson in them, but I’ll forgo it for now. If such lessons are meant to happen, they will do so eventually.
And it’s reasonably fine when the “other stuff” I’m thinking about is ‘good thinking’— something creative, or productive, of pleasant.
But some things I should be more mindful of, if only to hold them in my attitude of gratitude (aka the #attofgrat.) How many people don’t have the privilege of waking in a comfortable bed, with the nutritious food available for a healthy breakfast? How much beauty is there in the day that I’m missing because my mind is elsewhere?
Even more damaging is when the Autopilot frees up my brain, not for good thinking, but for the crazy crap of my disease: Obsessing on The List, worrying about all I’m not getting done, how much worse I have it than imaginary people who don’t have to do these unpleasant, tedious chores and all the other varieties of stinkin’ thinkin’ my jerkbrain can ambush me with.
I still love my Autopilot, but the Program is teaching me it’s a two-edged tool. I’m learning to pay attention to it, and appreciate when it’s helpful, and hit the “stop” button, or abandon it and change up and step outside the script, when it’s not helping.
And trust that my Higher Power is the one in control. Not me.
#attofgrat for the Serenity Prayer.