Autoplay is how you end up four episodes deep at 2am. Autopilot is how you end up four years deep in a life you didn’t pick.

Defaults choose for you by removing the moment where you would have chosen. Nobody decides to watch four episodes, the next one simply begins and the decision point never shows up. Larger parts of a life run the same way, with courses, jobs and towns selected by momentum, because stopping to ask takes effort nobody schedules. The mechanism is identical and only the timescale changes.

Insert one decision point this week. Turn off the automatic next episode, or sit for twenty minutes and ask whether you actually chose what you are currently doing. Keeping it after asking is a real answer too.