You Can Just Do Things

Some people, given a message to deliver to someone a thousand miles away, think, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Others think, “Can I just find their Instagram and DM them?” The former is the thought of a compulsive workaholic. The latter is high-agency thinking.

Look across the three theaters of your life—work, relationships, and self-relationship—and take note of the biggest issues you face. Then, read this book with that area in mind, because that’s where cultivating agency is likely to be the most transformative.

The human default is to voluntarily accept constraints, convincing ourselves that they are mandatory. We choose to accept a set of expectations placed on us by others—or that we imagine others are placing on us. Then, we act as if we’re stuck indefinitely. We all forget our radical freedom as human beings, forget that the list of things we actually have to do is minuscule.

How many hours per year of “leisure” time do you blow on activities that aren’t actually rewarding, and what could you have done with the last couple years’ worth of that time instead?

What values do you claim publicly but violate in private? Which causes do you earnestly believe you care about, but never devote time or money to? Which “mission” would you abandon tomorrow if no one could ever see you pursue it?

Imagine your child, or someone else you love, inherits your exact habits upon coming into adulthood. Which ones would you pay good money to delete from their life?

Which talent or goal that you “plan” to pursue have you made zero progress on in the last year? Why does it never make it to the top of the priority list?