How many of us are living on cruise control?

Not thriving. Not struggling, exactly. Just … moving. Getting through days rather than living them. Ticking boxes. Showing up. Going through motions that used to mean something but now just feel like motions.

I didn’t notice when it started. That’s the thing about cruise control. You set it and forget it. The car keeps moving. You arrive at places. From the outside, everything looks fine.

But inside, something has gone quiet.

I remember the moment I realized how far I had drifted. I was standing in my kitchen, staring at a coffee cup, unable to remember if I had already drunk from it or just poured it. Such a small thing. But it stopped me. When had I become so absent from my own life that I couldn’t recall the last five minutes?

Burnout does this. It doesn’t always announce itself with collapse or crisis. Sometimes it just dims the lights slowly until you’re navigating by memory instead of by presence. You know the shape of your days so well that you stop actually experiencing them.

The body keeps moving because it knows the route. But the person inside? She checked out awhile ago.

If any of this feels uncomfortably familiar, pause here for a second. Not to fix anything. Just to notice. Notice where you are sitting. The way your breath feels in your chest. The fact that you’re here, reading this, instead of racing ahead to the next task. That small pause matters more than we give it credit for.

I think many of us have been running this way for longer than we want to admit. The pandemic taught us how to survive. We learned to push through uncertainty, to adapt endlessly, to keep going when going felt impossible. And we did it. We kept going.

But somewhere along the way, survival mode became the only mode we knew. We forgot there were other ways to live. We forgot that presence was even an option.

Cruise control is useful on highways. It saves fuel. It gives your foot a rest. But it was never meant for the whole journey. 

Rebuilding from burnout doesn’t ask for dramatic reinvention. It asks for small interruptions. Moments that gently bring us back into our lives.

It might look like pausing before you answer an email instead of firing back on autopilot. Like stepping outside and actually noticing the air temperature. Like tasting your coffee instead of just consuming it. Like asking yourself—quietly, without judgment—Am I here right now? Or am I just moving?

You don’t need a plan yet. You don’t need to overhaul your life. Awareness is enough for now. Presence always starts small.

These moments matter. They interrupt the automation. They remind us that we are not machines designed only for efficiency. We are people. And people need more than productivity. We need a connection. We need experiences that register. We need to feel ourselves inside our own lives again.

If you’ve been living on cruise control, you’re not broken. You adapted to survive something hard. That was necessary. That was brave.

But survival isn’t the same as living.

And you deserve to live.

If this piece made you feel seen, consider sharing it with someone who might be quietly running on autopilot, too. Sometimes the first step back into presence is simply realizing you’re not the only one who drifted.

Amy Tucker is a University Instructor at Thompson Rivers University and proudly calls herself an “accidental athlete.” As a senior swimmer and long-distance open-water enthusiast, she has represented Team Canada on the Age-Group Triathlon Team for the past three years. Amy is passionate about encouraging others to embrace fitness and wellness at any stage of life, proving it’s never too late to chase new challenges.