this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- The entire showerthought must be in the title
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- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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What you’re describing is the opposite of mindfulness and is a great way to entirely lose yourself.
Sure autopilot has its uses, but if you’re relying on autopilot day in and day out as so many people are now doing in modern day, you are no longer yourself. You have become your autopilot. Like a gentle brainwash.
If you do this for long enough, this is how you end up with a mid-life crisis, because you’ll go through decades of your life on autopilot when one day your actual self shows up to take an assessment.
That’s when you realize that all the decisions, desires, pitfalls and relationships you’ve been having were also your autopilot and not you. If you’re not legitimately assessing your life and reflecting on it on a regular basis and constantly giving your life “input,” the world will leave you behind.
So were actually supposed to give attention to the most basic day to day chores?
Running basic day to day tasks on autopilot doesn't mean that it can't be turned off when those tasks are done. It's just a good way to maintain basic functionality, which overwhelming majority of life actually does consist of. Once the basic maintenance is done. Just flip a switch, turn the autopilot off and go enjoy your hobbies or yeah reassess and reflect.
Believe it or not, yes. It can be massively beneficial to teach yourself to give more true attention to all things. The more we’re in our heads, the less likely we are to be in touch with reality. Thought can only take you so far and there’s no downside to being more alert in our daily lives.
Obviously, if your job is to be a theoretical mathematician, this doesn’t apply in the same way, but mindfulness is a very real thing that benefits all parts of life.
Edit: I’m not even kidding when I say this is both the core principle of what Alan Watts was teaching (here’s a clip from his famous “Overthinker” speech) and the moral behind the movie Click. They’re both saying the same thing in different ways.
Fair, that's rather interesting actually. I do agree that mindfulness training and being aware of ones body and surrounding is and has been rather useful over the years.
I just wouldn't really want to do that with basic daily chores and prefer to have a specific dedicated activity for that.
Everyone just distracts themselves all the time. Even a walk in the forest, some people do that with a podcast playing. They don't enjoy the natural world around them. Being in the moment seems to be too boring for most.