Hello beautiful people,
"If the path before you is clear, you're probably on somebody else's." - Carl Jung
Most people are living somebody else's life - their desires and opinions programmed by cultural conditioning and those around them.
Sometimes this serves them well. Often, it traps them in a mental prison.
They spend their lives waiting for somebody else to give them permission to make the decisions they want. They jump through hoop after hoop, hoping that one day they’ll finally be able to spend more time living how they really want.
They blame others for their mistakes and complain about being powerless to improve their situation. They'll double down on the idea that "my situation is different", when you offer them help or support.
They live in a state of low-agency.
You'll see this everywhere in our culture.
People stay in unfulfilling relationships because they're afraid to face the uncertainty of being single, or "that's what you do after X years together", or rush into marriage at a certain age because "it's time."
They follow trendy diets and mainstream health advice without questioning if it works for their body. They accept chronic conditions as "just part of getting older" rather than investigating root causes.
But nowhere is it more visible than in our idea of a "successful life".
People take on massive student debt for degrees they don't want, so that they can get jobs they hate.
They move to expensive cities they don't like because "that's where the jobs are" or buy houses they can't afford because "renting is throwing money away."
Most people working in a 9-5 don’t do it because it’s the best decision for them right now, not because it’s aligned with their highest purpose, but because they feel like they should. They feel like they have to, because they don’t see another choice.
I was lucky enough to grow up in Malaysia, a beautiful tropical country with an abundance of nature, food, and sunshine all year round. You would think that a holistic and healthy way of life would be right at the top of the agenda.
Yet there was only really one version of success that was presented to me. I was constantly conditioned to think that the pinnacle of success is being a high ranking corporate drone living in an increasingly comfortable and artificial environment.
This was the only choice that the society that I grew up in told me was available to me. There are loads of cultural and political reasons for this, but understanding why the maze was built doesn't make it easier to escape.
As you might imagine, this bothered me.
For some, chasing the corner office in a big firm truly is the right move, their idea of success matches what society has told them. How lucky!
Most people aren’t.
Yet they stay where they don't want to be, to get somewhere they don’t want to go.
They make the decision that's most socially acceptable, because even if they end up unhappy with it, nobody can say it was the wrong one.
That was me for most of my life. Everyone has probably experienced the lull of low-agency at some point in their life. Most people never wake up.
They carry on making the "smart move", the sensible move, the one they've been told to make by people that don't have to live with the consequences.
The problem with living like this is, as zen philosopher Alan Watts said,
“You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is — to go on doing things you don't like doing, which is stupid.”
It is pretty stupid.
Next week, we'll explore what it means to be high-agency - seeing choices where others see walls, refusing to outsource your life decisions to others, and building the confidence to trust your own judgment over society's script.
It doesn't mean being arrogant and not listening to other people's advice, it means knowing how to integrate that advice into your life in a way that aligns with what you want.
It's about asking "what do I actually want?" and having the courage to pursue it, regardless of what your parents, friends, or LinkedIn network say.
The longer you spend waiting for permission to live the life you want, the more of your life you'll waste chasing somebody else's version of success.
To your freedom and independence,
Rob
Wild Minds Community
PS.
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