Stay Conscious on Purpose

You Are Unconscious

Most people aren’t conscious — not across their entire environment.
And yes, I’m including the classic “not living in the present.”

We don’t understand the why behind our actions.
We don’t recognize our triggers.
Sometimes, we’re not even capable of pausing — even just for a second — to observe the inner dialogue in our mind and how it spills outward into action.

Earliest Experience I Can Remember

Honestly, I have no idea when it first happened to me.
The earliest memory I have of it was when I was 12 years old.

One day, I was eating.
I don’t know what I was eating — I didn’t pay attention to details back then the way I do now.
But I remember it was messy.
Very messy.

Out of nowhere, I snapped out of it.
Snapped out of the autopilot.
I stopped for a second and noticed my clothes were getting dirty.

What if I always eat like this? I asked myself.

So I stopped. Repositioned my food. Tried to clean it up a bit.
Tried to make less of a mess.

Years later, I realized — that was it.
That exact moment… that’s what “living a moment” actually means.

How Does It Feel?

It’s hard to describe.
To me, it’s like standing between two mirrors that face each other.
Every move you make — you see it ripple back through infinite reflections.
Every action echoes.

At first, it feels weird.
Uncomfortable.
Unnatural.

But… have you done it?

I bet you have. I have.
You’ve turned around and seen yourself from a side view.
You’ve looked at the back of your own head.
You’ve struck poses in the mirror just to see how you really look.

Right?

Well, staying actively conscious feels kind of like that —
Except this time, there’s no mirror.
Just your mind.

In this version, you hear yourself after every word you speak.
You see yourself in every movement you make.

And just like when you catch yourself in an ugly mirror angle —
you start to correct it.
You tweak the words. You shift the gestures.

Eventually, with enough practice,
you build a mental fitting room.
Inside your mind.
For your mind.
So your mind can walk in and change itself —
as many times as it wants,
in whatever way it wants.

That’s the key: practice.

Anything Is a Hobby

Staying consciously awake is just like any other skill.
But there’s a lot of confusion about what that even means.
Some people think it’s a talent.
A trait.
Something you’re either born with or not.

It’s not.
It just happened to become a hobby of mine —
thanks to a series of moments life tossed at me.

If you really, really want it —
If you truly want your life to start morphing right now —
just try it.

It’s not easy.
When you start, you don’t get it.
You’re unbalanced.
Like a kid learning to walk.
You’re fragile.

And if you fall, you might get scared to try again.
(And here I mean — finding something ugly inside yourself,
and running from it instead of facing it.)

Like playing ball and getting smacked in the face.
After that? You might never want to play again.

But everything has two sides.

You can live the glory of screaming:
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAL!!!
Or…
You can feel the sting of the ball right to the face.

How to Make It Stronger

Like I mentioned before — practice will be your best friend.
With me, it happened because I was introduced to it as a distraction from my own overthinking.

You’d think I’m nuts — but we’ve all had those crises that take over our thinking for no clear reason.
So I started reading about body language.
I’d sit at the park and just observe people.
Try to guess what they were saying. Feeling. Hiding.
It helped me focus on the very second it was happening.

Again — I was practicing what Dr. Mihaly calls “flow”… but unconsciously.
How pathetic is that?
While I was consciously trying to focus on the moment…
I was unconsciously having an “optimal experience.”
LOL.

So back to focusing on the moment…

Integrating body language reading into your life is a lot like that.

You start watching yourself — and others — obsessively.
Until one day it becomes natural.
Second nature.

And once you wake up —
you never fall back asleep.

You don’t just understand why people do what they do…
You start to understand yourself a little better.

But let me give you a little warning here:

Don’t focus on just “paying more attention” or “reading” other people.
First — that’s creepy lol.
Second — the point is to fix yourself.

Once you realize that people’s issues only affect you because you have your own…
Trust me — people won’t be so annoying anymore.

Practice, Practice, Practice.

Training isn’t about doing something until it’s perfect.
Training is about doing it until it’s hard to do it wrong.

That’s how something becomes part of you.
That’s how it becomes automatic.

You can tell someone about this.
Maybe they’ll try it for a week.
Then forget.
Toss it aside.

Because they didn’t want it.
Not like a kid wants a brand-new toy.

You need feedback.
A reward. A feeling. A result.

But just like everything else — there’s always a moment where the “newly incorporated” habit fades.
The drive collapses.

And that moment —
That’s the one that matters the most.

Because that’s what reveals someone’s capacity.
Their resilience.

This is where the kids get separated from the grown men and women.
And trust me — this isn’t just about consciousness.
It’s about everything.

Survive the dip.
Trigger the discipline.
Trigger the action.

(Because motivation = action, and action = motivation.)

Maybe that’s the point we should touch next post?

Let me know what you think in the comments.
Have you stayed conscious on purpose lately?