Why do you do the things you do?

Much of what we do, we don't really decide. The route to work. The order in which we open the apps on our phone. The third coffee. The way we answer “How are you?” The reasons we say yes to things we'd rather decline.

A lot of daily action is habit, not choice. That isn't a flaw in the system; it is the system working. Deliberation is metabolically expensive, and the brain offloads as much as it can to autopilot so it can spend its attention elsewhere.

The trouble is that autopilot doesn't update. It keeps running on instructions written years ago, by a version of us with different priorities, in response to circumstances that may no longer exist. We do things because we have always done them. Because someone, at some point, expected it of us. Because they help us avoid something we haven't yet faced.

A simple practice can shift this. Pause, briefly, before the next thing you do, and ask: why?

It can be why as in justification, but could also simply be why as in direction. If I keep doing this, where does it lead? Does it take me closer or further away from my goals? What life does it build? Is that a life I have actually chosen?

Most of us, asked this honestly, find that some of what fills our days is no longer ours. It belonged to an earlier self, or to someone else's idea of us, or to an old fear we have outgrown. That is worth knowing.

The pause is the whole practice. The answer takes care of itself.

Here’s to a more intentional week ahead.

— AJ

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