Just as I’m about to do the dishes, someone calls from the other room:

“Hey, would you do the dishes?”

Suddenly, I no longer want to. What gives?

Beyond decision, there is the person making it. Us.

This ability to choose, to steer our own course, is at the heart of our existence.

When we stop trusting ourselves to make choices that feel meaningful—choices that serve us and those we care about—we can feel unmoored. Our sense of self, our personhood, starts to unravel.

So when someone tells us what to do—even if we were about to do it anyway—it’s not just the decision that’s taken away. It’s as if our personhood itself is under threat.

The Toddler Within

We can collapse, rebel, or even protest with the raw energy of a toddler insisting, “I exist!”

“I don’t wanna,” and “No” are the simple and powerful ways to tell the world, “I exist,” We instantly create a contrast, through contest, through opposition drawing a line between ourselves and the world. This injured sense of agency screams, “I am!” even if that looks like lying on the couch.

And, when we’ve manage to fight against our inner resistance, stumble into some flow forward and someone else says, hey “do the thing” that we were about to do anyway – we collapse – not because of some chemical, but because our sense of agency–our ground for practice and growth–feels that it has been taken.

When stress rises, the waves in the sea of a wandering mind grow rougher. Our simple desire to exist—to steer our own little boat—becomes even more urgent, as we strive not to drown.

We internalize these outside voices. Suddenly, when we tell ourselves to do the laundry, that “responsible” part can feel like just another bossy stranger—someone else to resist.

Our own inner nudge—“Hey, I should do that thing”—can start to sound like an external authority. And our wounded sense of agency pushes back: “No.”

• Kourosh

PS. This post is part of a series exploring agency—how we find, lose, and reclaim it. The full series is now available as a Rhythms of Focus podcast episode, free for your listening pleasure.