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
Frequent lamenting about how bad things are (in politics or relationships or other culture gripes) is mostly a way for people to avoid responsibility for what they can change. If you constantly repeat that everything is bad, it lets your ego off the hook for doing nothing.
Simon Sarrisx.comA 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
Another example of this sort of thing that I am constantly frustrated with is something that I experience as other people being very lacking in curiosity, but from the inside is probably more a lack of reflexive agency over their understanding of the world: It seems like people just stay confused about things that matter to them, and I find this
... See moreDavid 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
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
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
Rudra Dakini • Tweet
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.