For much of my life, I was convinced agency meant taking control.
I set bold goals.
I made strategic and tactical plans.
I shaped life into the form I wanted.
It was exhausting.
As I have grown older, my understanding has changed. Agency no longer feels like control. It feels more like engagement.
Paying attention to what is actually there.
Participating in the world around me.
Responding to what life presents.
Building the capabilities that allow me to keep responding.
This is not a strategy I adopted all at once. It emerged gradually, through small daily practices of noticing. I started jotting down ‘Field Notes’. And over time, patterns emerged. The invisible became visible. Those practices have changed the way I live.
Some of these practices are outward-facing. A conversation at the market. A familiar face on the walking path. The woman at Woolworths wearing sparkly brooches above her name tag that says Mary. The countless small encounters that ask nothing of me, yet draw me into the world.
I have come to think of this as participation without obligation. A way of being involved without needing to control the outcome.
Other practices are more personal.
Each morning, I record my HRV, sleep, exercise, and other health markers in a spreadsheet I have maintained for years. What began as a way of tracking numbers became something more important.
A daily act of attention.
A quiet conversation with reality.
Not an attempt to control every variable, but a way of staying engaged with what is true.
Together, these practices create a particular stance toward life.
They keep me curious.
Responsive.
Ready to be ready.
I’ve also come to realise that noticing is not a single skill. It is a family of attentions that keeps us in contact with reality.
Sometimes it is observational—simply seeing what is happening around us.
Sometimes it is embodied—sensing what is happening in the body.
Sometimes it is relational—recognising what another person might need.
Sometimes it is pattern noticing—seeing trends over time in a spreadsheet, a habit, or a relationship.
Sometimes it is systemic—understanding how larger structures shape what is possible.
Sometimes it is capability noticing—seeing what supports or erodes our ability to respond.
And sometimes it is coherence noticing—recognising when life is working well.
These forms of noticing may look different, but they all serve the same purpose. They help us stay in touch with what is real. And from that contact, agency becomes possible.
As I look back over these past few essays, I can see that agency begins much earlier than action.
It begins with attention. With the willingness to notice what is here.
To participate where we can.
To remain engaged with reality rather than retreat into abstraction or control.
This is how I live now. A life built on noticing.
And perhaps that is what aging well ultimately requires.
Not mastery over life,
but the capacity to keep noticing, responding, and participating—
one small act of attention at a time.
Noticing as agency. Never thought about it quite like that before..
These are insightful thoughts about noticing and attention, Robyn! Cheers!