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

“The capacity for growth depends on one’s ability to internalize and to take personal responsibility. If we forever see our life as a problem caused by others, a problem to be "solved," then no change will occur.”
― James Hollis, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife

phoebe

Belief → Will → Action → Habit → Character → Destiny "Life begins when you realize that you are not just who you are, you are also who you can become. You are a being who is also becoming. Life begins when you truly realize that you are free to act and become who you want to be."

phoebe

The kind of agency that comes from knowing how to win friends and get things done is important and should be learned. But without aligning it with wisdom—and without fellow travelers on the path toward less foolishness—greater foolishness often follows.

Peter Limberg • How to Win Friends and Get Things Done ... With Wisdom?

Stuart Evans

I’ve come to believe that agency — the ability to start, decide, act, adapt, and follow through — is rising in importance as AI continues to spread. We’re used to seeing raw intelligence as the ultimate advantage, but something is shifting. Intelligence is now everywhere. It’s on tap. It’s no longer scarce. The rare thing now is the ability and... See more

Agency is the new superpower

Stuart Evans

You Need to Be Agencymaxxing

strangestloop.io

Stuart Evans

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.

Cissy Hu • Grappling with the big questions

Stuart Evans

Musings on agency part 2: Find your feedback loops (gradients) that feel like eating chocolate ice cream. But also find your feedback loops that also feel like doing an insanely hot sweat lodge with a group of good friends that have your back.

Christopher Smeder x.com

SStuart Evans

thread

biggest joke of my life… after years and years of trying so hard, i can just unclench the sense of doing anything and 1. my “willpower” increases dramatically 2. i get better at pretty much everything (this is not the same thing as non-coercion!)

brent x.com

SStuart Evans

thread

First, be clear about your intentions. For myself, I want to maximize learning and improving myself, and minimize “zombie entertainment”. This is when we’re caught in a pattern of consuming from a firehose feed for entertainment, without intentionality. It’s a fake flow state: time passes quickly and the world fades away, but there’s no cognitive... See more

Andrew Conner • Making the Internet Work for You: YouTube

sari