The scene: Woman behind me at the airport, struggling to scan her ticket to board the flight.

Airport gate agent: Are you flying Aer Lingus?

Woman: Yes

Airport gate agent: This is the line for United.

…Oh.

We’d all been in line for over 20 minutes in Dublin at the flight gate heading to Chicago.

As usual, there had been multiple announcements over the airport speaker about the flight (it was full), what they needed (people to voluntarily check their carry-on luggage at the gate), and what group was currently boarding.

But somehow this woman missed every visible sign, every auditory clue. She was on autopilot, and it wasn’t until the agent’s simple (yet very important) question jolted her out of her routine that she realized she was in the wrong line.

To be clear: there’s no judgment here. This could happen to any of us.

Obligatory airport bathroom selfie

The power of autopilot is real.

Think about how many times our autopilot takes over in a day. Have you ever pulled into your driveway and realized you zoned out during the entire drive? Or been in the shower and thought, “Did I already wash my hair?”

We move through our routines, convinced we’re paying attention, oblivious that we might be missing critical details.

Our brain has evolved to tune things out; we simply can’t pay attention to every detail. To conserve energy, our mind locks on to a routine and filters aggressively. We could miss or dismiss the clearest messages because we’re focused on getting to the next step, instead of checking the sign above the gate.

The downside is we’re almost certainly tuning out some essential messages, like new opportunities or nudges from our intuition.

What line are you in?

This tendency to follow the path of least resistance doesn’t just apply to our morning commute. It often steers our entire lives, especially when it comes to the “expected” path: School → Job → Marriage → Promotion → House → Kids 

Or whatever the expected version is in your world. The line moves forward, so we move with it.

Sometimes this momentum feels good and productive. But activity ≠ the right direction for you. We rarely stop to ask: Where is this line actually going?

The thought of waking up at a destination you never truly meant to go to is a bit terrifying, right?

So, my question for you this week is: Are you standing in a line because it leads to where you want to go? Or because it was simply the line in front of you?

If you need to switch gates, you’re absolutely allowed.

Cheering for you,
Nicole