Life on autopilot

So what does it mean to live a life on autopilot?

It means your life is cruising on a set course, things are very predictable, and you cannot do anything unexpected with your life. For some that’s a good thing, while for others it’s very boring.

This article suggests 5 signs of life on autopilot. Below is evaluation of my life under these signs.

1. You know exactly where you will be in 5 years (and it depresses you!)

I don’t have a slightest clue what I will be doing 5 years from today. 5 years is a long time. I don’t even know where I will be in 1 year. And I am not at all depressed about it. Matter of fact, this uncertanity of life is what keeps me going. I look forward to every day because I don’t know what it will bring. If I knew what would happen tomorrow, I would probably stop working.

2. Your career is what your parents wanted you to do

My parents probably never thought I would end up working in an industry where it is hard to explain my job description to common people.

3. You went straight from school to college to work

Err, I worked for a while before joining grad school. No I did not travel around the world, but I did explore myself and evaluated what I wanted to do with my life. And after considering everything, I decided to go for graduate studies.

4. You did well in school and automatically chose a college course that was the hard to gain acceptance into (eg medicine or law)

I didn’t do that well in school. My scores were pretty average. The college course I chose was also not something that was mighty hard to get into. Although my college was one of the best and they accepted selected few students, I consider myself very lucky to get accepted and survive it. So much so that I went on to pursue a Masters degree in the same major. I could have chosen something else as well, something that didn’t require a high score in school. But I went for Computer Science because that’s what I wanted to do.

5. Your interests and/ or hobbies are all the same as from when you were a child

No, I had different interests when I was a kid. I used to collect postage stamps. I still have that stamp book burried somewhere in the closet, but I haven’t touched it in a decade because I got bored out of it.

Turns out my life is not quite on autopilot, I am in charge and I know what I am doing. I have the power to change things if and when required.

So what kind of people live an autopilot life? I can only think of people in military. They have a set course of life, when to get promoted, when to retire, what to do after retirement, and not many deviate from that path.