automatic

So many things in our lives are automatic for us; we flip open a cell phone and press two buttons to start a conversation, doors open as we approach, cars unlock on command of a button. I wish other things were as simple as these mundane activities. But, the things that can get us from here to there or connect us to people really are nothing but automatic machines. The cell phone, the doors, the car, aren’t really getting us places or keeping us in touch. It takes something within ourselves to push the buttons, to walk, to turn the wheel. But it’s not even these human actions that propel us. It’s something deeper, something I feel so far away from at times.

You see children at store with their mother clamoring for the Cocoa Puffs, you see the college students laying on blankets on a lawn on a cool fall day, you see the cute young businessman on his commute in the morning and for a minute you think about how their lives got them there to that point, to that moment. You wonder if they are thinking of having other lives too.

When we are aligned by the automatic nature of our lives, why are we not more connected? What is it that was so automatic for that mother, those college students, or that businessman that made their path so different? And who out there looks at my life and wonders the same thing?