Faded Jeans Living

“What does agency mean in your life?”

I’ve often heard the term agency, but I never fully understood what it meant. After some research, here’s what I discovered: Agency refers to a person’s ability to make choices and act on them in a way that influences their own life and the world around them. It’s about having a sense of control, autonomy, and the power to shape your own path rather than being only acted upon by outside forces.

Key aspects of agency in life:

• Choice and Decision-Making – the ability to look at all your options and decide for yourself.
• Autonomy and Control – the sense that your actions matter, not just following what others dictate.
• Responsibility – owning the outcomes of the choices you make.
• Self-Efficacy – the belief that you can influence outcomes if you act.
• Freedom vs. Constraint – recognizing that circumstances can expand or limit agency.

In short, agency is your capacity to act intentionally, make choices, and have an effect on your own life and surroundings.

Examples of using “agency” in a sentence:

• “I’m taking more agency in my life by setting my own goals.”
• “She showed agency by speaking up during the meeting.”
• “You have agency over how you respond to challenges.”
• “I didn’t use my agency and just went along with what everyone else wanted.”
• “He exercised agency by choosing a different path for his career.”

Voices on agency:

Eleanor Roosevelt: “In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”

Mahatma Gandhi: “The future depends on what you do today.”

Viktor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Agency is not just the capacity to act in the moment, but also the cumulative effect of all the choices you’ve made over time.

Each small choice adds up to a pattern. That pattern becomes your life direction. Your agency is both the power to choose and the legacy of choices you’ve already made. (Read that again — the legacy of your choices.)

Some describe agency as the thread that weaves together your past, present, and future — transforming life from something that merely happens to you into something you actively shape. I completely believe this.

My reflection:

It’s a fascinating concept that helps frame our lives. The idea of thread and weaving has been appearing more and more in my readings. I see life as me weaving my own path, but ultimately my threads intertwine with the lives of others. In the end, it forms a shared tapestry. While I cannot control every thread, I do have control over the beauty of the part I weave. So do you. The weaving is our legacy.

We have agency. ✨

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Definitions gathered by ChatGPT.