Habit and Darth 'Vator

The past two weeks have been the kind of extraordinarily busy weeks when I run out of time to see what's right in front of my face. You know, the sort of day when you leave the office so wrapped up in planning the next day that you find yourself halfway home before you realize you've been driving? That kind of busy. The kind where I get stuck in habit.

For example, the elevator. After I've hit the point in my day where I can justify going home, I toss my highlighter back in the pen cup on my desk, log out of my computer, grab my keys and purse, and head for the elevator. The whole process is so habitual that it requires literally no conscious thought. I wonder out to the elevator bay, press the down button, and go home.

Unless...

See, lately my subconscious seems to think it's funny to toy with me. There have been several recent occurences of my brain switching one habitual mechanism for the other. And for me, that's manifested in the elevator. In the morning, I completely habitually hop into the elevator at ground level and push the button for the fourth floor. Lately, my brain has found it funny to prompt me to push that fourth floor button in the afternoon, when I'm hopping on the elevator on the fourth floor, hoping to go down.

The result? I sit on the fourth floor until I figure it out, wondering why the elevator isn't moving. I've probably done this five or six times, now. You'd think I'd figure it out, but no. I have so much faith in my habits that I simply can't believe I'd do something wrong. Humiliating.

This all came to a head last week, when a tremendously windy day somehow created an enormous power surge in the building. The power had been flickering for the better part of the afternoon, and I was one of the last people to leave my office. You'd think that blinking lights would be enough to deter me from my elevator habit, and prompt me instead to use the stairs. Nah. Without even thinking, I pushed the down button and waited for my chariot to arrive.

I'm certain that I pushed the first floor button. The elevator went down, anyway. For two seconds. And then it stopped. I pushed the alarm button. Nothing. I was stuck.

Now, I'm blessed to work in a building with glass-sided elevators that offer a lovely view of the parking lot and freeway below. And, to be honest, after I stopped caring about the fact that I was stuck in an elevator, it was kind of awesome. I sat in the elevator, watching the streetlights sway in the wind. I played a guiltless game of iPod Scrabble. I just hung out, with nothing to do, for more than twenty minutes.

When the power came back on, the elevator developed a mind of its own. It zoomed up to the ninth floor, where it opened its doors. I flew out of the demon elevator as soon as it opened its drawers and took the stairs back down.

But I was grateful. For twenty minutes, my habitual life was completely different. For twenty minutes, I was aware of my life instead of blindly gliding through it. And I liked it a lot.