Blame yourself for everything, and preserve your agency.

Nivi: Let’s talk about one more tweet which I liked when I first saw it, or I might have retweeted it. I think people retweet things when they see something that they haven’t figured out how to say yet, but they knew in their head, but it’s just implicit—it hadn’t been made explicit. I think that’s when people are like, “I need to retweet this.” So this one was January 17: “Blame yourself for everything and preserve your agency.” From my end it’s like: Take responsibility for everything, and in the process of taking responsibility for something, you create and preserve the agency to go solve that problem. If you’re not responsible for the problem, there’s no way for you to fix the problem. Naval: Just to address your point of how it was something you already knew, but phrased in a way that you liked. Emerson did this all the time. He would phrase things in a beautiful way and you would say, “Oh, that’s exactly what I was thinking and feeling, but I didn’t know how to articulate it.” And the way he put it was he said, “In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.” And I just love that line. It’s what I try to do with Twitter, which is I try to say something true, but in an interesting way. And not only is this a true and interesting way to say it, but also it has to be something that really has emotional heft behind it. It has to have struck me recently and been important to me. Otherwise, I’m just faking it. I don’t sit around trying to think up tweets to write. It’s more that something happens to me, something affects me emotionally, and then I synthesize it in a certain way. I test it. I’m like, “Is this true?” And if I feel like it’s true, or mostly true or true in the context that I care about, and if I can say it in some way that’ll help me stick in my mind, then I just send it out there. And it’s nothing new for the people who get it. If it’s not said in an interesting way, then it’s a cliche, or if they’ve heard it too much, it’s a cliche. But if it’s said in an interesting way, then it may remind them of something that was important, or it might convert their specific knowledge, or might be a hook for converting their specific knowledge into more general knowledge in their own minds. So I find that process useful for myself and hopefully others do too. Now, for the specific tweet, I just noticed this tendency where people are very cynical and they’ll say, “All the wealth is stolen,” for example, by banksters and the like, or crony capitalists or what have you, or just outright thieves or oligarchs. “You can’t rise up in this world if you’re X.” “You can’t rise up in this world if you’re a poor kid.” “You can’t rise up in this world if you are from this race or ethnicity, if you were born in that country, or if you are lame or crippled or blind,” or what have you. The problem with this is that yes, there are real hindrances in the world. It is not a level playing field, and fair is something that only exists in a child’s imagination and cannot be pinned down in any real way. But the world is not entirely luck. In fact, you know that because in your own life there are things that you have done that have led to good outcomes and you know that if you had not done that thing, it would not have led to that good outcome. So you can absolutely move the needle, and it’s not all luck. And especially the longer the timeframe you’re talking about, the more intense the activity, the more iteration you take and the more thinking and choice you apply into it, the less luck matters. It recedes into the distance. To give you a simple example, which most people won’t love because they’re not in Silicon Valley, but every brilliant person I met in Silicon Valley 20 years ago, every single one, the young brilliant ones, every single one is successful.

Every single one. I cannot think of an exception. I should have gone back and just indexed them all based on their brilliance. By the way, that’s what Y Combinator does at scale, right? What a great mechanism. So it works. If people stick at it for 20 years, it works. Now you might say, “Easy for you to say, man, that’s for the people in Silicon Valley.” No one was born here. They all moved here. They moved here because they wanted to be where the other smart kids were and because they wanted to be high agency. So agency does work, but if you’re keeping track of the time period, you’re going to be disappointed. You’ll give up too soon. So you need a higher motivator. That’s why Elon goes to Mars, and that’s why Sam wants to invent AGI. And that’s why Steve Jobs wanted to build, 50 years ago, in the eighties he was talking about building a computer that would fit in a book. He was talking about the iPad. So it’s these very long visions that sustain you over the long periods of time to actually build the thing you want to build and get to where you want to get. So a cynical belief is self-fulfilling. A pessimistic belief is like you’re driving the motorcycle, but you’re looking at the brick wall that you’re supposed to turn away from. You will turn into the brick wall without even realizing it. So you have to preserve your agency. You’re born with agency. Children are high-agency. They go get what they want. If they want something, they see it, they go get it. You have to preserve your agency. You have to preserve your belief that you can change things.

I started doing this a while back, and it makes a HUGE positive difference.

It is a sound principle in life to always start dealing with an issue by assuming it is your fault.

Love responsibility. Say: ‘It is my duty, and mine alone, to save the earth. If it is not saved, then I alone am to blame.’ Love each man according to his contribution in the struggle. Do not seek friends; seek comrades-in-arms. Nikos Kazantzakis

You and me are on the same page. I blame you for everything!

Reserve all harsh judgment for yourself, and all tender mercy for others...

Reframe your failures as gags in a Looney Tunes episode

Love this. Relating the idea to target fixation on a motorcycle is so accurate; if you fixate on the problem, you manifest it. One of the many reasons you rarely ever see successful people complain.

Very apt, thank you for your insight. I think when we say 'to take the blame', what we mean is to take ownership of everything within our control. When we do that, we exercise not only our agency but what we deliver has some reflection of our soul in it. Whatever be the circumstance, our attitude defines us. Think Victor Frankl, Gandhi, Malala, who preserved their agency despites severe personal setbacks and conditions. For most of us, who are more fortunate in circumstance, there is no excuse not to preserve our agency.

if it’s my fault.. it’s my fix.

Every excuse you outsource is a piece of control you sell off cheap.

This really hit on something for me. Thanks for sharing. Also, the way you offer it in different forms is deeply appreciated. It’s like they’re meant to meet people where they are.

Taking charge starts with blaming no one but yourself.

Induction and Ayn Rand in the podcast.

Banger

Blame is never the point. Responsiblity is. Own it. That's agency.

Step 1 - walk into the bathroom Step 2 - look into the mirror Step 3 - blame that person Simple as that lol

Love this.

This has been, by far, one of those most empowering truths I’ve ever had.

Yes

Love this @naval I first learnt this in a business seminar in 2012 where the speaker said “you are where you are in life now because of you and only you”. Blame yourself and then your energy won’t be drained by looking for others to blame!

Blame yourself not to feel guilt, but to keep control. The moment it’s on you, it’s also in your hands to change. Even if the world caused it, owning it keeps your agency intact. It shifts the frame from “why me” to “what now,” and that’s where movement starts.

blaming others = giving up your power to change anything, gotta own it all to stay in the driver's seat

Self accountability is huge.

That thought sounds empowering at first, but it’s actually dangerous if taken literally. False responsibility → Not everything is within your control. If you blame yourself for everything, you risk internalizing guilt for events caused by others, by chance, or by systemic issues. Agency ≠ blame → True agency is about focusing on what is in your control (your choices, your response), not assuming ownership of the uncontrollable. Psychological harm → Constant self-blame erodes confidence, can foster anxiety/depression, and may prevent you from seeing external factors that need to be challenged. Balanced accountability → Better framing is: accept responsibility where you have influence, release what’s beyond you. This keeps your agency intact while preserving mental well-being. 👉 A healthier thought: “I’m responsible for my response, not for everything that happens.”

I'll make my own mistakes thank you 😄.

@grok resuma em 780 carácteres ou mais

This is why @taylorswift13 is so successful

the people with 'low agency' are simply those who haven't fully grasped the fact that if you do not save yourself, you will spend the entirety of your life in the same mud hole

Naval is a wrapper over osho

accountability is the one lever nobody can take.

Agency dies the moment you start pointing fingers.