Agency

The mismatch between past and present doesn’t seem trivial to me — if the “you” of today can so blithely disregard the “you” of yesterday, then it follows that the “you” I’m talking to now might very well not be the one who shows up for our date tomorrow. There’s a kind of unpredictable change that seems to lie outside of the virtues of growth and... See more

Agency itself is not necessarily a good thing. It becomes a good thing as a toolkit, developed by people who are also high in conscientiousness, who want good things for the world, and who might otherwise be constrained by narrow perspectives on what counts as socially acceptable action.

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

You gotta be understanding who you are and where you're at in life right now. You absolutely have to be figuring out how you can increase your capacity to influence your own thoughts and behaviors as well as your faith in your ability to handle a wide range of tasks and situations.

Agencymaxxing happens through doing things. You can think all you... See more

I was realizing how many personal and interpersonal issues ultimately traced back to feeling like one has little to no agency. Everything from confidence to motivation can be traced back to agency, at least to some extent.

Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

David Foster Wallace,

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