The Secret Agent
A young woman asked, “what am I supposed to do?” She was having a conversation with her father about life. She didn’t know where to go, what direction to take, with the whole world in front of her…it was overwhelming. Age aside, most people feel this at least once in their lifetime. The passion of choice, the freedom to go, and the crippling indecision that holds them locked in place unable to move in any meaningful direction.
Psychologists call agency the capacity to make choices about one’s actions. You are free to choose how to respond, how to behave, how to engage others…the decisions are endless. Agency has deeper meaning than you might realize. It is the core of our morality because without it, every moral decision is lost. Agency fosters virtue and defines character through each subsequent decision you make.
Morality is intentional, responsible, the guiding principles that bring us through the best and the worst of times. Choosing when and how to exercise your agency is a fallacy because even in action and indecision are choices which merely allude to your agency’s existence. Even judging someone else’s actions is an exercise of agency. Does anyone really have control over their decisions? Of course you do, but to what extent, the secret agent in our lives is agency…it is the means by which each of self-governs, controls our behaviors, decides to be a good person, and helps others. Our morals, the decisions we live by, our core values, are the expression of agency but the relationship between the two goes deeper.
Raw agency is undirected, aimless, goes in circles, it is the reason you can never get ahead, the struggle against impulses. Morality provides the direction to agency, it is the parameters of our conduct that keeps us moving forward. As a society, when everyone is exercising their agency under moral direction, we see the success and benefits for all. I am always intrigued by the person who acts selfishly, who believes that others owe them, who does not think of others and only of themselves. Perhaps they have not experienced the same moral lifestyle that I have…which is not to say that I or my morals are any better than the next person. But to simply demonstrate that some people have suffered great injustice and may be operating from a place of scarcity instead of growth.
And there are those who never formed moral understanding, immature adults, who still behave childishly. They cause pain and suffering to those around them because they cannot cope with reality. Addiction and crime fit these categories, too. Without moral formation, your agency is squandered…because it is what keeps us accountable and it is the accountability that allows us to maintain and sustain our autonomy.
Agency gives us the change to do the right thing and when we choose not to, we lose that opportunity. Gradually, over time, there is a compounding effect of our choices. A lifetime lived through one good or bad decision at a time. The Holy Scriptures give us glimpse of what agency and morality look like...you will know them by their actions (Matthew 7:16).
It is an essential and important element of personal freedom and strength, agency provides that security and control we often seek, but only when we are guided by morality. Secular philosophers have tried to separate the two, but you cannot because together they provide the meaning and boundaries of our lives.
Every relationship is built on trust and shared experience…but without morality or agency the relationship ceases to be successful and eventually ends in chaos, pain, and disappointment. You can hope for the best in others…but hope is not agency. Ask the gambler, the abandoned child, the nurse, the priest, the dying parent…what they have seen and how people have suffered.
You can hope for the best in others…but hope is not agency.
Accepting your present circumstances in life is acknowledgement of the choices that you have or have not made, of your agency. Modern psychologists argue that freedom and capacity are needed for agency to be present…wanting to excuse your behaviors or suffering because you had no choice, you were not in control, or your freedom was constrained. These are lies. You control your thinking, your choices, and through them your feelings and your actions. When you don’t like the person you have become, the circumstances you face, or your present situation…you have choices to make about your future. They may not be the choices that you want, nevertheless, they are choices…and after enough self-reflection, you may find the point or series of points where your agency brought you to today.
Tomorrow never comes…when it arrives, it already today…and therein lies the truth of agency. Your moral decisions, your character, your dedication, your actions…are all the ways that you make use of your agency – the secret agent – of your life to become the person you want to be and to create the life worth living.
Recognizing that you are responsible for your own behaviors and actions is the clearest path to fully embracing your agency. Regular self-reflection is not enough, you have need regular moral formation…doses of goodness, love, and closeness to God. Morality alone is hollow compliance, emptiness, and meaningless. The consequences of investing in your spiritual life is having the ability to live with freedom and joy. Agency is abundant for those living with moral fortitude.
Where are you morally formed and where is your moral formation lacking? Take the test and find out! It might surprise you…
