I read somewhere, that while the survival mechanism of animals and plants operates automatically, the survival mechanism of humans operates by choice. We must choose to use our consciousness (which some people refer to as “sentience” to distinguish from simple “awareness”). “Going with the flow” (like only dead fish do!) or claiming you are just “a product of your environment” is not a good idea: act now, move something, make decisions, because the worst possible mistake is to not do anything at all. Initiate actions.
If I didn't take the time to work on my home site, it would have not grown to a tenth of the size it is today. And I started with some Spartan pages written in very old HTML with some mathematical riddles, and a C.V.. Now my home site is positively huge and people can spend days on end reading everything I've placed there, and now - adding more and more text there is easier for me out of practice. A lot of people have been jealous (i.e: wishing what I created was created by them instead) or envious (i.e: wishing to destroy what I did) but I knew better than to be permanently set back by them.
You too can have a wonderful home page, or become a good martial artist, or write great fiction, or learn how to cook very well, or simply lead a happy life full of wonder, love, and happiness. But it means you have to lead your life by choosing to think, making decisions and acting - not let nature take you in its random ways the way it sees fit.
Even if consciousness is just an illusion, and we don't truly have free will, we should play by this illusion, because not playing by it will make matters much much worse. Those that don't think enough, become terminally ill with mysticism (= mental laziness) and become lazy (despite appearing to constantly work intensively in sedentary work), incompetent, lying, needy, envious and unhappy people who expect everyone to feel sorry for them and obey their orders blindly (up to actual genocide or killing 100 million of their own citizens). Like Adolf Hitler, or Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.