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
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all
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The opposite to reflexive agency is prompted agency - agency which only becomes available given some prompt to action. “That does seem like a problem. Have you tried solving it?” is my only-half-joking prompt I use with people: It’s something that highlights the failure of agency, in a way that makes people aware that action is an option available
... See moreDavid R. MacIver • Learning to exercise 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
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
I think that talking about agency and introspection separately is misguided. People who emphasize how to get things done, and move faster, and reach higher levels of mastery—agency without introspection—tend to get pulled into fierce yet boring status competitions. People who emphasize introspection and emotions but without a problem solving... See more
Spot on thought via Henrik Karlsson
