Only a small fraction of people will ever realize that they can just do things. It’s always easiest to adhere to the status quo, but doing so strips you of the power to drive life forward on your own terms. There are few common factors in greatness, but I believe one of them is having radical agency.
To me, radical agency means defining outcomes based on first-principles thinking and working obsessively to achieve them. For the ambitious, these outcomes will naturally go against the status quo, giving you the opportunity to reap the benefits of a risk others aren’t willing to take.
As a simple example, take my recent move to New York City. It wasn’t an easy move: my lease in Michigan didn’t end for another seven months and I had no leads on a place in New York. With less agency, I may not have even seen it as a possibility. But from first-principles thinking, I knew I would be happier if I moved, since all my colleagues were in the city. I was determined to make it happen, and within a couple weeks I had signed a new lease in New York City, found someone to take over my lease in Michigan, and moved.
If life clearly grants you opportunities, take them. If life doesn’t clearly grant you opportunities, think independently about what you want and then take them anyway. You’d be surprised what’s possible through obsession: how could anyone passive stand a chance when you’re living and breathing your goals?
More often than not, the greatest restrictions are the ones we impose on ourselves. If you don’t believe you can do something, you won’t do it. More is possible than you think: don’t let your own mind become a glass ceiling. What would you do if you had ten times the agency you have now? What if you gave it a shot and everything went right?