everyone needs a project over which they have agency

the other day i had dinner with my little (fratnernity) brother and we went back on an idea that i’ve been coming to believe more and more. he pushed me on it (which is something i appreciate about our relationship, we don’t let shit slide with each other) and it helped me clarify this idea into something i firmly believe now.

so what was the idea?

i think that everyone (yes, everyone) needs at least one project in which they have full autonomy.

i use the term project loosely and i think that could be anything from simply developing your own practice of something (meditation, drawing, swimming, etc.) to gardening to writing a book to running a 100 mile race and on and on.

a few points that came up in our conversation:

• i think it’s important for everyone to have a project or area of work like this to observe what happens when your values and abilities crystallize.

• the above point doesn’t mean the thing you make or work on isn’t in communication with other people and energy in the world. i i don’t even know if it’s possible to do something in complete isolation (see post about everything being connected). cody really pushed me on this point, but i think the key here is that, though the project, can be in connection/conversation with others, decision making control has to be solely yours.

• some people overprioritize projects of this nature. they only want to work on projects that they have full control over. and they freak (in obvious or non-obvious ways) when that’s not the case. the idea of this post is not for those people. it is for people (myself included) who default to collaboration mode and don’t have anything that they have full agency in.

there’s more to say about this but gotta run for now. need to hit work early today!

words / writing / post-processing
318w / 10min / 8min