Agency is the capacity to act without permission—and the courage to accept whatever happens next. That sounds neat, but living it is messy.
I’ve spent my whole life waiting to be picked, waiting for a sign, waiting for someone to say it’s okay to want what I want. I used to call it patience. Really, it was fear.
Eve’s Moment: Wanting More and Acting Without Permission
I've been thinking about the story of Adam and Eve. Not the version where Eve ruins everything, but the one where she’s the first person to say, I want more.
She’s in paradise—no hunger, no fear, nothing missing except the feeling of being fully alive. And still, something in her stirs. A quiet, restless wanting.
If you look at it through the lens of the hero’s journey, the serpent isn’t just a tempter. The serpent is the call to adventure. It’s that voice that says, Is this really all there is?
At first, Eve refuses the call. She stays in the garden, follows the rules, keeps the peace. That’s what most of us do. We hear the call and we wait, hoping it will go away or someone else will answer it for us.
But the call doesn’t fade. It gets louder, more insistent. Eventually, Eve crosses the threshold.
She reaches for the fruit—not out of rebellion, but out of a need to know, to grow, to choose for herself. She acts without permission. She steps over a line someone else drew, and she owns what comes next.
I don’t know what she felt after. The story doesn’t say. But I like to think she walked out of the garden with her head up—scared, maybe, but awake in a way she hadn’t been before.
Sometimes the most sacred thing you can do is answer the call, even if it costs you everything familiar.
Eat the Apple: Redefining Procrastination and Permission
Brian Tracy talks about “eating the frog”—doing the hardest thing first. But I think there’s something deeper than just tackling a tough task. Sometimes the real challenge isn’t the task itself. It’s the act of moving without permission.
For me, eating the apple means taking action even when nobody says it’s okay. It means knowing that people might disapprove, that you might get it wrong, and doing it anyway. Once you eat the apple, you own whatever comes next. There’s no one else to blame.
I’ve had moments where I hesitated, not because the work was hard, but because I was afraid of what would happen if I stepped out of line. What if I disappoint someone? What if I fail? But the truth is, waiting for permission is just another way to hide.
Eating the apple is risky. You might lose comfort, approval, or certainty. But you gain something else—a sense of ownership, a life that’s actually yours. It’s not about being reckless. It’s about being real.
The Cost of Agency
When I talk about consequences, I’m not speaking in the abstract. After I made some big career moves in this last year—moves that felt necessary, but risky—life got messy in ways I didn’t expect.
The roof started leaking. Not a small fix, but thousands of dollars gone in an instant.
Then the car broke down. Another bill, another hit.
Marriage problems. Parenting problems. Money problems.
It felt like everything was falling apart at once.
For a while, I told myself it was just bad luck. But the truth is, these things are connected. They’re the fallout of choosing a path where there’s no safety net, no one else to blame. I chose to eat the apple, and this is what came with it.
Owning your choices means owning the mess, too. It’s not comfortable. But there’s a strange kind of peace in knowing that, for better or worse, this is the life I chose. I’d rather deal with the fallout of my own decisions than live with the regret of never having tried.
The Quiet Reward
Agency doesn’t guarantee applause or comfort. Most of the time, nobody notices the choices you make or the storms you weather. There’s no trophy for dealing with a leaking roof, or for holding your family together when things get tight. The world keeps moving.
But something shifts inside. You start to feel a kind of presence—a steady, grounded sense that you’re living a life you chose, not one that was handed to you. Even when things are hard, there’s a difference. The pain is yours, but so is the meaning.
I don’t feel victorious. I feel real. I know what it costs to act without permission, and I know what it costs to wait. I’ll take the mess over the numbness of waiting any day.
That’s the quiet reward: not certainty, not success, but the knowledge that you’re awake in your own life. And that’s enough.