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It is Tuesday morning, 6:42 AM.
The alarm rings, and Anna’s hand moves automatically. Even before her eyes are fully open, she reaches for her smartphone. The blue light is the first thing her brain processes. A few WhatsApp messages, a quick scroll through her Instagram feed to see what she missed, and two work emails checked parallel to her first coffee.
Everything feels like a “rush,” even though the day has barely begun. A latent sense of urgency spreads in her stomach.
On her way to work, she dimly remembers her resolution from the night before: Tomorrow I’ll start calmly. A few minutes for myself. A clear thought. But as is so often the case, the outside world pushes its way in. The day pulls her in before she can even sort herself out.
In the office, the picture is the same: One meeting chases the next. Urgent tasks displace important ones. The desktop is cluttered with open windows, the phone vibrates. Anna functions, reacts, delivers—and at the same time feels that she hardly exists within this day. She is a passenger in her own life.
In the evening, she lies exhausted on the sofa, her head full yet strangely empty, and asks herself: When was the last time today I actually did something that truly came from me? Not out of duty. Not out of expectation. Not out of a digital reflex.
Anna is not alone. Many people know this feeling: A life full of movement, but hardly determined from the inside out.
When the External World Takes the Lead
Our modern everyday life is increasingly dictated by external impulses: appointments, notifications, algorithmic stimuli. These things are not “evil” per se—but they have a magnetic effect: they permanently draw our attention outward.
The more we merely react to these stimuli, the less space remains for inner orientation. We unlearn how to act and fall into pure reaction.
Psychology looks at the relationship between passive consumption and active creation (the Active-Passive Ratio). If this ratio tilts permanently toward the passive, our Self-Efficacy dwindles. We no longer experience ourselves as the pilots of our lives, but as being driven. Chronic stress, burnout, and depressive moods are often the psyche’s response to this persistent feeling of loss of control.
The Silencing of the Inner World (Alexithymia)
When we run permanently in reaction mode, something fatal happens: The inner world falls silent.
Feelings need space and silence to be perceived. When this space is missing, emotions become diffuse. We no longer feel specific “sadness” or “genuine joy,” but only vague states like “stressed,” “tired,” or “wired.” Many people describe it like this:
- “I don’t even know what I actually want anymore.”
- “I feel somehow numb, even though so much is happening.”
- “I’m just functioning.”
In technical terms, the state of losing access to one’s own feelings is called Alexithymia (emotional blindness). In our hyper-connected world, this is often not a pathological defect, but an acquired protective function of the brain. If you are constantly standing in the noise of the outside world, you simply can no longer hear the quiet voice of the inside.
The Brain Needs Idle Time: The Magic of the DMN
Here lies a crucial key that we often forget in the digital age: Our brain possesses a mode specifically responsible for this inner world—the Default Mode Network (DMN).
For a long time, science thought the brain was inactive during rest phases. Today we know: The opposite is true. When we seemingly do “nothing”—stare out the window, go for a walk, daydream—the DMN kicks in. It performs heavy neuronal lifting:
- Consolidation: It sorts experiences and stores them in long-term memory.
- Self-Reflection: It aligns inner values with outer actions.
- Creativity: It connects loose thoughts into new ideas (which is why we often have the best ideas in the shower).
- Identity: It strengthens the sense of one’s own “I”.
The Problem: Fast digital stimuli—TikToks, Reels, news tickers—suppress the Default Mode Network almost completely. The brain remains trapped in the “Task-Positive Network,” the mode for processing external tasks. Internal “digestion” comes to a halt. We cover our own emotional void with foreign emotions from the screen.
The Courage to be Bored: The Way Back
Boredom feels unpleasant, almost painful, at first. We are so accustomed to dopamine hits that silence feels like withdrawal. But boredom is biologically necessary. It is the threshold state we must cross for the DMN to activate.
Whoever reaches for their phone immediately when there is a minute of downtime at the supermarket checkout robs themselves of the most important mechanism for psychological stability.
When we allow boredom, the DMN works. When the DMN works, inner clarity arises. From inner clarity, genuine decisions arise.
And this is exactly where Purpose is born. Purpose is not a huge, distant life goal that you achieve once and then possess. Purpose is a feeling: The feeling of coherence, direction, and alignment. It arises when the inner world and the outer world run in sync again. When we no longer just react, but create.
From Reacting to Acting: Relearning Self-Confidence
How do we flip the ratio from passive to active? The path leads through conscious decisions—and we often underestimate how much small, self-chosen challenges change us.
It doesn’t have to be anything earth-shattering. It can be something you haven’t trusted yourself to do for a long time or have kept putting off in the daily hustle:
- Read a chapter in a challenging book.
- Paint a picture or draw a sketch.
- Write a few honest lines in a journal.
- Start a small project that has no “utility” other than giving you joy.
We often think: “I don’t have the energy for that” or “I can’t do that anyway.” But this is a fallacy of the passive mode. Because as soon as we begin and feel that we are getting closer to a goal of our own—no matter how tiny—something happens in the brain: The feeling of control returns.
We experience: I do something, and it has an effect. This feedback loop massively strengthens self-efficacy. The inner balance shifts:
- Less “I have to” (externally determined).
- More “I want to” (self-determined).
From this experience of efficacy, new motivation arises. And from that, finally, comes the feeling of significance—your own purpose.
Back to Anna
Let’s imagine it is Wednesday morning, 6:42 AM.
The alarm rings. Anna opens her eyes. Her hand twitches reflexively toward the nightstand—but she pauses. She takes a deep breath. She leaves the black mirror lying there. She gets up, makes coffee, and takes five minutes to read the first pages of the book that has been gathering dust on her nightstand for months. She reads only two pages. But she chose to do so.
The world out there is still the same. The emails are still waiting. The stress will come. But Anna is different. She doesn’t start driven, but with the small, quiet triumph of her own decision.
Control is not created on the outside by completed to-do lists. Control is created inside you—in the exact moment you choose one thing that you might not have trusted yourself to do yesterday.
Ask yourself just this one question today: “Which one thing do I choose today—consciously and only for myself?”
References & Further Reading
The concepts in this article are based on established psychological and neuroscientific models:
1. The Default Mode Network (DMN) & Resting States
- Raichle, M. E., et al. (2001). “A default mode of brain function.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (The foundational paper discovering that the brain is highly active during rest and that this activity is essential for self-awareness).
- Immordino-Yang, M. H., et al. (2012). “Rest is not idleness: Implications of the brain’s default mode for human development and education.”
2. Self-Efficacy & Active/Passive Ratio
- Bandura, A. (1997). “Self-efficacy: The exercise of control.” (The standard work on self-efficacy: The belief in being able to influence one’s own life is central to mental health and motivation).
- Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). “Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation.” (Explains why self-chosen goals—autonomy—are crucial for our well-being).
- Seligman, M. E. P. (1972). “Learned Helplessness.”
3. Alexithymia & Emotion Regulation
- Sifneos, P. E. (1973). “The prevalence of ‘alexithymic’ characteristics in psychosomatic patients.”
- Levy, J. (2016). Connections between high smartphone usage and diminished emotional intelligence/perception are discussed intensively in newer media psychology.
4. Boredom as a Trigger for Creativity
- Mann, S., & Cadman, R. (2014). “Does Being Bored Make Us More Creative?” Creativity Research Journal. (Empirically shows that boring tasks lead to more creative output because the brain starts working in the DMN).
