Auto Pilot

Auto Pilot – things we do, without thinking, without paying attention. Sometimes productive – the grandmother who knits socks and shawls without looking  at what she’s doing – she’s done it so often, her fingers know the way without her presence. Sometimes leading us in the direction we should go, or on a path we no longer follow where our car heads without conscience thought.  Detrimentally, when the candy dish next to our chair, is suddenly empty as we eat without realizing it, “because it’s there”.

So easy though, to let auto pilot take over, to not think about what we are doing, to just keep moving. Thinking we are moving forward, when the direction may be anything but.  We do it in our jobs, our relationships, maintaining our homes, social gatherings, and so much more.

We keep moving because that is what we are “supposed to do”, we think.  We attend the “right” activities, do the things that someone else’s experience has said will get us ahead in the world, but in the process we forget to see the world, to listen to the birds or that old cliché, “take time to smell the flowers”.  

We focus on the auto pilot of the motion. The lower down the chain we are the more the motion means survival.  The higher up the chain, the more they are just auto pilot motions without true meaning.

A recent article in the paper, about retirement regrets, said that not saving and investing wisely for our future was still the chef regret of retirees, but right up there alongside it was not taking the time to travel  while we’re still able to. Not spending time with others before one or the other of us faces declining health. For most, while we are given the warnings about future regrets, we are so focused on the auto pilot motions that we don’t absorb the true meaning of the words – we focus on making the money to pay for that fabulous trip, rather than on the time spent working vs the time spent with family and friends going to a park.

Then suddenly, time is no more. Cats in the Cradle. Everyone has moved on and our dreams of spending time with others is gone because they don’t have time for us now.

Another regret was not building a social network of friends who will be with us long after the auto pilot of work and raising our families has ended. The ones who will be there to sit shiva with us as others leave this world, or will hold our hands as we grieve and mourn.

Regrets can be as simple as not saying “I love you” more often, or not taking time to relax over a cup of tea with a friend and commiserate when things go wrong or celebrate the joys as they come.   We each have our own list which we are afraid to put in writing, because that might make us a “failure” rather than simply acknowledging our humanity and frailty. Signs of regret play on the stereo as I write this – Cats in the Cradle, Leaving Galveston, Getting on a Jet Plane, Goodby Again and so many others.  Songs of regret that say what we cannot put in words ourselves.

Dale Weir

January 2020

Photo by Rebecca Grant on Unsplash