Now Boarding on Track 4

One of the realities of living in different places all the time is that I take different routes "home" all the time. Last week I had lunch with a friend by the World Trade Center, and then took the train out to Hoboken, NJ. Since I've never done this before, I read every sign to make sure that I got on the right train. There was a sign near the track, a sign on the front of the train, and a sign over each door to the train. They all said Hoboken. I got on. Business people filled the train, headed home from work. You can tell when people are on their usual route because they don't read the signs and pay very little attention to their surroundings. They know where to go. They are on autopilot.

It turns out, they should have read the signs. Just as the doors were closing, the conductor announced "this is the train to Hoboken" and there was a general rush to get off the train. Apparently that track usually has the train to Newark. They assumed that this train would go to Newark. They did not read the signs.

Sometimes autopilot is helpful. In this case, it wasn't. If things in your environment change but you are on autopilot, doing what you always did, you end up in Hoboken when you wanted to go to Newark. They could have stayed on the train, insisting that track four always has the train to Newark, but they would have ended up in Hoboken, still wondering why they weren't in Newark. We all know people like that. We've all been that person, whether or not we've ever ridden a train. Be honest, what part of your life needs to be taken off autopilot because the behavior you've always done just isn't getting you where you need to go?