Reading the mind

Thoughts on autopilot? Take a mindful break

A few months ago, I started noticing certain turbulence in my thoughts and behaviour. My mind was sort of acting in auto mode. I would decide about something but when the time to act came, my mind would find a number of excuses to leave it at that. But it was just the tip of the iceberg; the real thing was hidden. I decided to delve deeper into it by paying keen attention to my thoughts, so as to find some pattern and subsequently solve the problem. I would be reading something and in between, my mind would show some related image from memory. I would follow the image and that would lead to something else. That something else would be followed by something entirely unconnected with the subject of my reading. This chain would become even lengthier if I decided to do an Internet search in between, thus eating away a good amount of my productive time. No wonder that the mind has been compared to a monkey. This monkey gets a free hand in the era of information overload. My intention, in no way, is to blame the Internet; on the contrary, I am a big fan of it, but it works better if we are the one in charge. Anyway, coming back to the point, the same thing was observed while watching online videos. When I looked at my "watch history", I was surprised. As much as 90% of the content had zero utility in my life. In fact, I would be more at peace if I avoided them.