The good news is that having high agency is an internal state of mind, and it can be absorbed. It means freeing oneself from artificial constraints and defying them. It’s Morpheus challenging Neo in The Matrix: “Do you think that’s air you’re breathing now?” The limitations we’ve accepted as natural — degrees, credentials, specialized skills, years... See more

there’s no character trait more essential to individual and societal progress than agency. Agency is the embodied conviction that you have the power to create meaningful change in your life and transform your vision into reality. It’s the engine that powers human progress.

The power of agency is, in practice, the power to build: to direct our intelligence toward the work of understanding the world and adapting it to our needs. It’s how we impose a purposeful order on nature’s chaos.