The Agency of Inputs

We all have radical agency over our inputs. 

It sounds mundane. “Your inputs matter.” Yeah no kidding. Familiarity keeps us blind.

Your inputs become your subjective world. Your life is what you focus on. Things that don’t reach your brain effectively don’t exist, at least for you.

But we mostly miss these choices. To get better, we think big: I’ll spend 30 minutes journaling each morning. Read smarter books. Expand my mind with a summer trip to Singapore. Do those things. But look past explicit moves. Scan your day carefully. Start seeing the river of inputs in which you bathe your mind. How many attentional choices do you make each day? 

Thousands! 

Environment and habits are the substance of focus. Inspect your invisible rituals: how you wake up, your pre-work practice (or lack thereof), your weekly grocery routine, subconscious swipes, the clips you watch, the songs or words that fill your ears at the gym. All inputs! 

The cleanliness of your home. Who you text after work. Your stack of Chrome tabs. The shirt you wear on a Tuesday. The weather outside your window. The city you choose to call home. Each an input - a subtle signal to self about who you are and where you’re headed. 

Life is a stream of inputs. Knowingly or not, you choose the ones that reach your brain and create your world.  To notice your inputs is to obtain agency, to reclaim your life from subconscious motion and habitual drift. And once you can see the thousands of inputs streaming by each day, what to do? 

Choose better ones.

You become your inputs. What are you becoming?