Someone Else Is Writing Your Story (And You're Letting Them)

Here's what I've been thinking about lately: we're witnessing the quiet extinction of self-determination, and most people don't even realize they're participants in their own effacement.

It starts innocuously enough. You're scrolling through your feed when an algorithm decides what you should see next. Not a big deal, right? Except the algorithm is making ten thousand micro-decisions about what kind of person you are based on how long you paused on that video, whether you clicked that link, which comments made you scroll faster. Each data point becomes a vote in an election you didn't know you were running in—for the office of yourself.

A central issue with most discussions about identity is they treat it like some mystical, unchanging essence floating around in your soul. But identity isn't a thing you have. It's a thing you do. Every day, in thousands of small moments, you're actively constructing who you are through choices, reactions, and definitions. The question isn't whether you have an identity. The question is: who's doing the constructing of this identity?

When someone asks you to describe yourself, notice how quickly you reach for external validators. "I'm a marketing manager." "I'm a dog person." "I'm someone who cares about sustainability." Each label is borrowed from somewhere else—job titles, consumer preferences, social causes. We've become curators of pre-existing categories rather than authors of original definitions.

The trouble with most advice about authenticity is it assumes you already know who you are underneath all the external noise. But identity is not discovered, it's decided. And if you don't actively decide, someone else will decide for you.

Consider how this plays out in the simplest interactions. You walk into a coffee shop, and before you've even ordered, you're being categorized. The barista sizes up your clothes, your age, your apparent rush level, and starts making assumptions about what kind of customer you are. Your credit card company knows you're likely to buy something within minutes based on your location and purchase history. Your phone has already predicted your next three destinations. You think you're just getting coffee, but you're actually confirming or denying dozens of algorithmic hypotheses about your character.

This external definition is incredibly seductive because it's so much easier than the alternative. When Netflix tells you what to watch next, you don't have to confront the anxiety of choice. When your political party tells you what to think about this week's controversy, you don't have to do the hard work of forming your own opinion. When your social media feed curates your worldview, you don't have to actively seek out information that challenges your assumptions.

What's dangerous about most warnings about losing autonomy is they focus on the dramatic examples—authoritarian governments, corporate surveillance, social media manipulation. But the real threat isn't the obvious stuff. It's the thousand small surrenders that happen so gradually you don't notice you're handing over the keys to your own consciousness.

So what happens when you externalize your locus of control?

First, you stop noticing you have choices. The recommendation algorithm becomes so good at predicting your preferences that you forget you used to actively discover new things. The news feed becomes so precisely targeted that you forget people might have different reactions to the same events. The social circle becomes so ideologically consistent that you forget disagreement used to be normal.

Then, you stop trusting your own judgment. Why would you need to develop your own taste in music when Spotify already knows what you like? Why would you need to form your own political opinions when your preferred commentators have already done the thinking for you? Why would you need to figure out what kind of career you want when LinkedIn is already suggesting your next move?

Eventually, you stop recognizing your own agency. The choices feel predetermined. The preferences feel inevitable. The identity feels fixed. You've become a very sophisticated consumer of your own life, but you're no longer the author of it.

The problem with most discussions about society is they treat individual and collective identity as separate issues. But social self-determination… it's just individual self-determination scaled up. A society that's given up its right to define itself is just a collection of individuals who've each given up their right to define themselves.

I'm going to suggest something that probably sounds more radical than it actually is: start small, but start somewhere. Pick one area of your life where you've been accepting someone else's definition of what's possible, and take it back.

Maybe it's your morning routine. Instead of checking your phone the moment you wake up and letting the accumulated anxieties of the internet determine your mood for the day, spend the first hour defining your own priorities for the next sixteen hours.

Maybe it's your news consumption. Instead of letting the algorithm decide what's important enough for you to know about, actively seek out information about something you're curious about, even if it's not trending.

Maybe it's your career path. Instead of optimizing for what looks impressive on LinkedIn, figure out what kind of work actually uses your specific combination of skills and interests, even if there's no obvious job title for it.

Maybe it's your community involvement. Instead of waiting for someone else to organize the thing you wish existed in your neighborhood, start the conversation yourself, even if you have no idea how to run a meeting.

Reclaiming self-determination is not about rejecting all external input. It's about insisting on your right to be the final editor of your own story. You can listen to advice, consider recommendations, and learn from experts. But the moment you stop being the person who decides what advice to take, which recommendations to follow, and how to apply what you've learned, you've given up the thing that makes you you.

The single most important decision you'll make today is whether you're going to actively participate in defining who you are and what you stand for, or whether you're going to outsource that job to someone else's algorithm.

Choose accordingly.