How to Stop Being a Passenger in Your Own Life

Let’s face it, most of the time we’re just cruising along, letting life shove us around like an over-enthusiastic parent trying to force-feed us mashed peas. We respond to notifications like trained dogs, jumping from one thing to the next without much thought. A ping from an email, a little red dot on the screen, and suddenly, whatever we were doing gets tossed aside. At the end of the day, we look at our to-do list and wonder what on earth happened. This isn’t life, it’s passive viewing, like watching someone else play a video game and wishing we had the controller.

Grabbing the Wheel Instead of Sitting Shotgun

First off, let’s talk about the little things. Notifications, emails, and all those digital crumbs we tend to follow blindly. It’s like we’re Pavlov’s dogs—hear a ding, drop everything and respond. Every time we react like that, we’re surrendering control. We’re letting outside forces—our phones, inboxes, and that annoying group chat—decide what’s important, rather than us. It’s not that checking an email or scrolling social media is bad, it’s that we’re doing it mindlessly, without intention.

When we’re intentional, we start deciding where our focus goes instead of being yanked around like a kite in a windstorm. And no, this isn’t about becoming some productivity-obsessed robot who wakes up at 4 a.m. to journal and do yoga (unless that’s our thing, in which case, go ahead). It’s about doing what actually matters, not just whatever happens to pop up in our feed.

Scrolling Less, Living More

Speaking of feeds, let’s have a chat about multitasking—or rather, why we should stop pretending we’re good at it. Watching a documentary on quantum physics while scrolling through Instagram memes isn’t multitasking; it’s a distraction buffet, and all we’re doing is nibbling on nonsense. Our brains aren’t wired to focus on multiple things at once. What we’re really doing is rapidly switching between tasks, which sounds impressive, but in reality, it’s the equivalent of a toddler trying to juggle flaming swords—messy, chaotic, and nothing really gets done.

When we focus on one thing at a time, everything changes. Imagine actually reading that article we saved without being sidetracked by a cute puppy video. Revolutionary, right? Suddenly, the content we consume isn’t just background noise; it’s something we engage with, think about, and maybe even use. We become active participants in our own lives rather than distracted observers.

Being Intentional with Our Choices

Finally, let’s get real about decision-making. Half the time, we don’t actually choose what we do—we’re pulled in whichever direction seems easiest. See a notification? Open it. Spot a new Netflix release? Watch it. It’s like life’s a big supermarket, and we’re just grabbing stuff off the shelves without checking the labels.

But what if we chose differently? What if we didn’t just dive into the first thing that came up, but actually thought about it? Fancy reading an article? Brilliant—but let’s make sure it’s something worth our time, not just clickbait dressed up as insight. Want to watch a video? Great—but maybe we could avoid the endless rabbit hole of mindless scrolling.

Being intentional doesn’t mean we cut out all the fun stuff, it just means we choose it deliberately. If we want to spend an hour on a random YouTube spree, fine, but we should own that decision instead of pretending it just happened. When we make conscious choices, we reclaim control over our time and energy, and suddenly, we’re not passengers anymore—we’re driving.


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