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Finding a Sense of Agency Over My Life


I went to Texas on a work trip when I was 37.

This was the first time I had ever travelled alone with some extra time for myself.  

Everytime I travel I’m a freak show.   I’m afraid I’m going to forget or lose my passport, afraid I have messed up the reservation and won’t have a rental car, or a hotel room, afraid I didn’t bring enough money, afraid I brought too much money… the laundry list of fears is quite ridiculous.  

This trip was no exception.  

I landed in Dallas Fort Worth airport early in the afternoon and had all of the rest of the day to myself.

The only car that had GPS was a sporty little black cadillac, bonus! I got in and started to drive.  

I drove to a couple of stores I had been wanting to check out, and then drove to Justin, Texas about 30 minutes away.

Justin is not a very big place, but it is where The Justin boot factory warehouses are.  

I walked through all of the factory warehouse stores and bought myself a new pair of boots.  Next I stopped at a quaint boutique called the Paisley Pig, bought myself some new clothes, and then headed down the street for some Texas BBQ.  

While sitting there eating my smoked ribs, I realized how relaxed I was and how much I had enjoyed my day.  

I had been noticing as I went along that this day was different from other days.   This was the first time in my adult life I was doing the things I wanted to do, stopping at the stores I wanted to shop in, eating the food I wanted to eat, having a life experience that was all mine.  

I had never done this before.  I was always living for someone else, letting them make the choices, and doing what they wanted to do.

Somehow, somewhere, someway I had gained a sense of agency over my life.  

Once I realized this…once I recognized that my life was actually mine again, and that now I get to do life how I want to do it, the way I saw the world changed.  

It was not very long ago I sat down and thought about it again as I was listening to a friend speak about how she didn’t feel like she was free to make choices for her without being selfish.  

And I couldn’t even begin to relate anymore.  

There is such freedom in having agency over your life… but more than that, when it is your choice to do what you are doing…no matter how incredible or crappy it is, you feel good about it because it’s your choice to do it.

There are no more feelings of resentment.  

There are no more feelings of being trapped or jealous of others sense of agency. 

There are no more feelings of bitterness because I didn’t have agency over my life.  

There is no more guilt or uncertainty about doing what I want to do.

There is only massive gratitude and happiness for the life I am blessed to live and create.


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