cultivate autonomy

Action

Seek to increase your personal freedom-of-action over time, which can be roughly understood as the freedom to decide for yourself how to spend the bulk of your time per day, per month, per year, per decade.

Discussion

The primary reason to cultivate autonomy is so that you can align your work, actions, thoughts, effort, personal gifts, exertions, cares, and labor with your values, principles, and visions.

This Pattern is less important for those who prefer to be directed by others, or those who are subject to systems that are in fact aligned with their values and principles.

For the rest of us, those who want to direct ourselves towards our own internally generated aims, cultivating autonomy must be a fundamental pillar of our personal systems.

The most important thing in life is to be free to do things.
–John Boyd

This Pattern is exceptionally important if you want to be involved in the work of Deep Response to the predicament humanity is currently facing. Most of our institutions are not responding well (if at all) to the unfolding crises of the 21st century, because most of our institutions are operating under the old paradigms that got us into this mess in the first place. They are lagging behind or actively working to make the world worse.

While there are some organizations that are worthwhile to engage in and be directed by, they are few and far in between. For most of us, obtaining a high level of personal autonomy is the only viable strategy to direct the amount of personal energy towards the work we feel called to that we desire.

And for most of us, cultivating autonomy implies cultivating financial independence. The institution that devours most of our life-force is “having a job.” We must expend our gifts on the tasks laid out before us by our employers. This can be a wonderful thing if we’re aligned with the vision of our employers, especially when our employers possess resources that can amplify the impact of our efforts. But if this is not your situation, then cultivating financial independence is the best means of earning possession over your own efforts.

Points to add:

• ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’ – Upton Sinclair
• Disciplined Minds
• Stoke, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards
• Financial independence is an inevitable outcome of VLCOL, financial stewardship, and having a high savings rate.