Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Exit to Nowhere and Anywhere

Agency. What an interesting little concept. We have complete control in only three things in our life. And they all stem from agency. We can choose what we think, how we feel, and what we do. When my counselor told me this today I was a little amazed that I hadn't come to that conclusion already myself. I had always thought I understood agency and these three concepts but then she took to another level to say that no one has the right to take away any of those three rights. Especially my right to feel.

I have all my life given over my right to how I feel to others. In one way or another when I expressed my feelings someone told me I was wrong to feel that way. I was initially hurt, but then accepted their judgement. And slowly I gave away every last little bit of my agency. Either allowing or forcing other people to dictate everything, down to how I should feel about something. As a cute little boy in Florida says "What the heck?!"

 This reminded me of an exit I passed a few times in Georgia. I would always tease it was the exit to nowhere, or anywhere you wanted, because of the giant gap in the middle. And really, that's a lot like our lives. We are moving along and have the ability to choose where that exit is going to take us. It is our literal God given priviledge to choose where our life takes us, be it good or bad. And when we are starting to let others fill in our exit signs for us, we are giving away the only thing that was truly ours to begin with, our agency.
And I had taken the route of letting others around me make the decisions for me. And the few times I chose for myself I would let them make me feel horrible for it, like I had betrayed them. Because I had chosen to let others dictate how I felt about my actions.
 
And that's not our Heavenly Father's plan for us at all. Each of us is given our agency and has the right to own up to our choices and know that they are ours.
 
So my project for the week is to make my decisions FOR MYSELF. And express how I feel about things FOR MYSELF and not let anyone guilt me into feeling any other way. I realize that if I don't change that I am heading the path of many women who sometimes find themselves in abusive relationships.
 
Will you be the change with me and either start taking back your gift of agency from those you gave it to, or help someone in your life that may feel like they no longer hold that gift for themself?
 
love y'all!

1 comment:

  1. I like this. One thing to note is when you are in a relationship with someone you love, you have to consider them in the decisions that you make. Same thing for when you have a family of your own. And so in a way you give up part of your agency to them because they have influence on what you do, what you think, and how you feel about a lot of things. And the same thing goes for giving up your own will to truly follow the Lord and His will. But either way it still needs to be something that you want to give up on your own which I think is exactly what you were saying.

    Sometimes it's hard to listen to those that you love and try to see it from their point of view and still feel that what they are saying is not 100% right for you. They have good intentions probably but it's that sifting through partial truths and misconceptions that can be difficult. I love your motto and push for change. I think it fits into this perfectly too. We constantly need to evaluate and readjust our direction and line of thinking in order to navigate around all the lies that exist all around us. How does that song go? Let the spirit be your guide? Or is that even a song? Haha I hope it is.

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