What are ways you have maximized your agency in life? | Hacker News Reader

What are ways you have maximized your agency in life?

1 pointcbenjumea2 comments

Since I came across the concept of agency years ago (thanks to George Mack), it’s something I keep revisiting in my life: how can I make the most of my personal agency? There are obvious things, like having a bias toward taking action and taking extreme ownership of everything, but what less common things do you think help increase agency in life?

Here’s mine: having interesting hobbies, and doing and reading things purely for the joy of it, creates engaging topics of conversation that build deeper connections with people than staying on the surface level. And it’s a way to make things happen to you. A person of high agency is always an interesting person.

Do you have any similar examples that have helped you have more agency in your life?

The next level you need.

The things in front of you are what happens. Want to learn guitar, dont keep it in another room or a closet. In fact, remove closet doors, make things visible. There's a balance of spending too much time organizing and removing all friction to productivity.

You can even take pictures of your battlestation and ask AI what improvements could be made.

You understand your mind has multiple sensors/states; emotions, good, bad, future, past, etc. and you need to filter these. All 'predictions' about the future are lies. All rumination about the past, you dont even remember what happened correctly, move on.

Your identity is not true; it may change drastically on short notice. Some good, some bad. You identify with any of the "I ams" like "I'm poor" or "I'm socially awkward or introvert" Maintain a written list of your identity; make sure it's positive and helpful. You're the authority of this, nobody else cares. Your identity might be

I am:

Good, moral, trying to help all people.

Love incarnate to all people.

Hard worker with integrity.

Loved and worthy.

Open to change for the better.

Ask for forgiveness rapidly, and not for permission.

Keeping my health to the maximum at all times.

The smaller the identity the easier the rules of life becomes.

Love this, thanks for sharing :)

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