Agency
Ideas around agency, aka the sense of control that you feel in your life + your capacity to influence your own thoughts and behavior
unoptimal and
Agency
In the other direction, I think there are skills and dispositions which increase your agency in general. Practical wisdom, the skill of knowing that to do, is generally agency-increasing because it makes it easier to find paths to act on your preferences, so gets you used to acting in general.
David R. MacIver • Learning to exercise agency
“Rather than feel impotent and useless, you must come to terms with the fact that as a human being you are infinitely powerful, and take responsibility for this tremendous power. Even our smallest actions have potential for great change, positively or negatively, and the way in which we all conduct ourselves within the world means something. You... See more
Have you seen those tweets saying things like “there are people with half your skills and intelligence living out your dreams, just because they put themselves out there and didn’t overthink it”? It’s definitely true. When I observe my own experience and analyse why things worked out, I can tell you that it wasn’t because of any business skills or... See more
Erifili Gounari • literally just do things
A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don’t even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are.
People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching... See more
People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching... See more
Sam Altman • How to Be Successful
Be optimistic, you only stand to gain. You are as good as you believe you are, your beliefs will shape what you do and, ultimately, who you become. Pay attention to your thoughts, they are the First Movers of your journey through this path called ‘life’. You are not a helpless bystander, you have control. You are the main character of your story.
Sherry Ning • Optimism Is Always the Best Strategy
agency, which I think of as something like “manifest determination to make things happen.”
Cate Hall • How to Be More Agentic
The first step towards being “high agency” is always the same. You cannot take effective action towards bending the world to your desire until you know, in detail, what it is that you desire.
Emmett Shearx.comsari and
Roughly, agency is the capacity to act to satisfy some preference. This breaks down into three parts: 1. The capacity to act. 2. Possessing preferences over outcomes of those actions. 3. Being able to choose to use the former to satisfy the latter.