Is Human Conciousness Alive?

We are living beings and are minds are always at work whether we know it or not, but I doubt this means that our consciousness is truly alive. To be alive means to be actively creating, changing or affecting the external. If we are living our lives on autopilot, as we are so prone to do, then our consciousness is dead. We are not trying to change anything, although we are affecting our environment. Instead, we are going about day-to-day activities, pursuing the things our society tells us we need to be happy such as money, possessions, and status. This can be good if we are accumulating these things with an unselfish motive, but in most cases we are not. To be truly alive as people, we need to create positive change for the planet, the future and ourselves.