4 ms·

I think one of the greatest predictors of life satisfaction is how much agency you believe you have. If you believe you have little, that you're just a leaf fl

I think one of the greatest predictors of life satisfaction is how much agency you believe you have. If you believe you have little, that you're just a leaf floating on the surface of a river getting tossed about by the current, you will be profoundly miserable. We are active beings and our brains have evolved to help us do stuff, and believing even before we try that we can't do things is a recipe for existential dread and depression. At the same time, stuff does happen to us outside of our control. We may think we have agency over something and discover to our frustration that we simply don't. Believing that we have complete agency over everything that happens is magical thinking and leads to toxic guilt and self-blame whenever anything bad happens to us or others we care about. I think there's a sweet spot where you should believe you have a little more agency than you actually do. When you're wrong, it's better to have guessed that you could affect an outcome and failed, than to assume you couldn't and miss an opportunity. A tablespoon of frustration is easier to swallow than a tablespoon of regret. I'm surprised how rarely I hear people discuss this because if I've learned anything in the past five years of therapy, it's how central our internal beliefs about how we interact with the world are to our emotional health.

marcus_holmes 3y ago
In my experience every time I've actively tried to change my world and achieve my goals it has just not worked. But every time I've been clear about my goals but allowed the methods to be shaped by serendipity, it's been successful. This is what I mean by "luck". It works, but I don't know why. It's very like the Personal Values thing that I learned in therapy: make decisions based on whether they align with my values above all other considerations. Again, it works - I end up getting what I wanted - but I don't know why.

marcus_holmes 3y ago

In my experience every time I've actively tried to change my world and achieve my goals it has just not worked. But every time I've been clear about my goals but allowed the methods to be shaped by serendipity, it's been successful. This is what I mean by "luck". It works, but I don't know why. It's very like the Personal Values thing that I learned in therapy: make decisions based on whether they align with my values above all other considerations. Again, it works - I end up getting what I wanted - but I don't know why.