Muggles.

NPC’s.

Oblivious.

Automated.

The unconscious — walking around asleep.

Not only are many (most?) of us walking around “unconscious” or “asleep at the wheel” much of the time (upwards of 90 plus percent of our waking hours), but we’re designed that way.

The reason awareness, particularly self-awareness, is so important is that you are an expert at automating processes.

You are so good at creating automations, that some of them work against you, and you’re not even aware of it (pun intended).

And we’re not just talking about bad habits; many of these automations are good for you; they just don’t work for getting you what you want.

Yes, yes, it’s all very confusing. Let’s take the pieces apart.

Your automatic processes keep you alive without thinking about things like beating your heart, inflating your lungs, creating cells, or converting fuel into energy. 1

Our very design has set us up from the start to automate processes, and this ability extends beyond the primal biological functions.

The ability to automate “things” (processes, programs, habits, and behaviors) is necessary.

It’s how we integrate what we’ve learned about navigating ourselves around the world. Could you imagine having to relearn that “The stove is hot, don’t touch it!” every time you walk into a kitchen?

It sounds ridiculous at that level. However, “Don’t think like that; you’re praying for disappointment!” is the same thing and also quite obvious if you’re familiar with the territory.

The subtleties and nuances of this go deeper than that.

The way you create and execute your automations (programs) becomes your behavior (your way of being). Left unchecked, many of them work against you.

As I said previously — (much of that works well enough not to be changed. However, some of those programs are the reason you’re getting what you want, and not liking it.

To “change” that or override the programs that aren’t appropriate for getting you what you’d prefer, you’ll need to become aware of the programs you’re running.) —

And, well, our automatic programs run outside of our awareness, that’s the point of automations. Once you’ve automated a psychological process into a behavior, there’s no escaping its effects.

Because we don’t even see these behaviors, it’s just how we are, not something we’re doing.

We’re talking about the behaviors that cause the behaviors we see…

Think about it like this: when you get “fed up” with a situation or another person and blow your gasket, most people think of the blowing the gasket part as the behavior that needs to be changed…

In truth, dozens of deep-seated behaviors led to you blowing a gasket, many occurring hours or even days before the encounter where you lost your shit.

None of these even appear to be related to losing your cool when “shit happens.” Nonetheless, they set up (caused) the environment for you to execute that behavior everyone can see and feel.

The same thing happens when you find yourself in yet another disempowering relationship, losing out on a business deal, missing the boat on an opportunity, and so on.

Further, these automatic behaviors are triggered by deeper automations that are much more difficult to identify. Like a sequence of automations or programs strung together in order to produce a result… it’s the results of these strings of automatic behaviors (programs) that we are trying to change.

The only way to get a different result is to use automatic behaviors that are created to get you the result you’re after…

But it’s not that easy. Or everyone would create “better” habits. It’s also not just laziness; there’s a lot more going on here.

Awareness is the key to unlocking them — the automations that run your life and prop up the identity you’ve constructed over the years.

The ability to play from a state of “in charge” comes solely from one thing: awareness.

Without awareness and the ability to wield it constantly and consistently, by the time we’re in our thirties, we’re basically automatons… and for the most part, exactly who and how you will be like for the rest of your days.

Yes, I said there are a few fundamentals of playing the game. If we were discussing chess here, awareness would be the board, the pieces, and the two players.

Here’s a couple of the other pieces.
Self-Awareness.
Self-Discovery.
Self-Actualization.

Self-awareness leads to self-discovery, which unfolds as self-actualization —

A lot of us are somewhat forcibly trying to self-actualize… trying to “make shit happen.”

All the work (read: EFFORT) is done at the Self-Awareness stage.

This proves difficult for most people as the effort required to achieve real Self-Awareness isn’t what we’re taught “hard work” is like.

Once you understand it, the whole thing begins to flow, and the “work” part of this becomes “play” (depending on your perspective — which is what we’ll be working on — your perspective. And that requires another skill set… the ability to observe yourself objectively without the harsh judgment you likely wield against yourself.)

This is just the tip of the iceberg; there’s much more to this awareness thing. It’s the core of what we’ll be focused on —

What it is, and how to use it to get what you want from yourself, your life, and your experience of you in the world.

For now, let’s move on.