When you were born, you had no agency in the world. Your parents determine what you eat, where you shit, and what you were going to be. When you grew up a little, you find out that you can think, you can talk, and you can go where you want to go even if its only cycling distance.
For some people, this trend of control continues to ramp up into adulthood. Where the misgivings of the school gets turned into the ability of self-study, the incompetence of bosses turned into opportunities to shine, and even the worst of circumstance gets wrestled into a path.
These are the high-agency folk, the soldiers, the business person, the high achievers. Today we are talking about these people, and how too much agency can end up being the poison that kills empires and families alike.
Initially the continuous acquisition of control can be a good strategy for success. You take on more responsibility, become more competent, acquire trust and therefore power/control. But what these people don’t realize is that there is an upper limit to this strategy.
It is possible for someone to take on too much responsibility.
And the most dangerous thing is, depending on how each person acquires their initial competence, this feeling can instead feel like incompetence. Well, it isn’t.
A person who has built their business empire by taking full accountability on the outcome and the millions that is at stake, can feel like shit when they struggle to live up to their family’s expectations. But this, is unbearably normal.
Responsibility induces growth through friction, pressure, and force. Just like forging metal, it is the thing that sufficiently damages you that strengthens. But too much heat, too much pressure, and too much force breaks even the best material.
There are two ways to solve this issue, if the issue is physical, technical, or financial, then you outsource the responsibility to other people. But if the issue is spiritual, mental, or emotional, then you outsource the responsibility to a higher power.
In short there nothing that causes successful people to self-destruct more than taking too much responsibility. And for these particular group of people, letting go of control can be a much more difficult task than obtaining it.
The timing matters a lot, it does pay to be extremely high in accountability and agency initially, but when the time comes when you start to feel like the weight of responsibility is breaking more than its building, then that is your cue to relinquish that control, either to other people, or God.