Agency

The lowest level of choice is not making a conscious choice at all, which happens when you don’t notice that you even could make a choice. In this case there is effectively no space between stimulus and response, so you just act out your habitual behavior unconsciously. If you ever find yourself skimming the news or looking in the fridge without... See more

you are a self-modifying machine, a particle with partial control over its own future, and it pays to know what all the buttons do. I’ve heard many people describe to me what sound like levers in their own souls, but I know very few people who realize that they can pull on them deliberately, if they want to.

The most successful entrepreneurs and business people aren’t necessarily the smartest. But the managerial tracks that have fueled the upper-middle class have been fed by a credentialed cognitive elite. I expect those priorities to shift toward agency, adaptability, and demonstrated value creation.

if i'd had more agency when I was younger,

I would have acted on some truly terrible decisions that I may never have recovered from

...which makes me suspicious of agency as the latest all-good panacea

Isn’t it wild how much power our words have?

How easily they can cast spells on people, how they have ripple effects in all directions?

And yet how often we shy away from using them, even when all they would do is bring more beauty into the world?

So what are you waiting for?