When we are learning to drive to pass a driving test, we have to be aware. New stimuli are constantly picked up by our sensory receptors to be transmuted into interpretation and meaning, thereby helping us to make choices in the moment.
Fast forward to once we have passed our driving test and have gotten used to our car and the roads. We have stopped learning. We are able to listen to podcasts or music while driving. We may even talk on the phone or eat while driving. Sometimes we will drive our daily one-hour commute to work and it passes by in an instant. Because we are no longer focused on learning how to drive, our minds become desensitized to the activity and it starts to wander. We are no longer present. We become unconscious.
When we are learning, we are consciously competent/incompetent. When we stop learning, we are unconsciously competent/incompetent.
If all the tasks we do in our lives are things we feel we have already learned, we drift into unconsciousness. Life passes by in a trance-like state.
The solution is to learn. A state of learning always snaps us out of unconsciousness into full awareness. We can either do this by choosing entirely new skills to learn, or by refining (or even revolutionizing) the way we already do activities we feel we have fully learned. It can be as simple as becoming aware of how we breathe, or how we walk.
Because learning creates a state of awareness, life will no longer pass us by, and so being able to experience life to the fullest.
Thought Canvas 