When You Don’t Feel Free
When defending freedom costs you yours…
Hello!
Real talk. This is a transcription of a voice memo I word-vomited in like 10 minutes yesterday and edited (poorly) on my iPad because my MacBook got soaked in the rain. (Long story)
But also it makes the perfect entry for this newsletter this week because I am currently traveling for the Fourth of July weekend. Which means not as much time as I expected to do a “highly polished, edited and produced edition” of the newsletter this week. (is it ever?) But that's okay, because thanks to the wonders of our AI robot friends, I can essentially revert to my old ways of podcasting, and just record something and boom, a newsletter appears!
So I want to talk about one of my core values that I outlined when Savannah and I went through the LifeFocus process. A big part of the process is determining our core values as individuals and as a couple. And it was really enlightening. (and I plan on writing a lot more about it.) I'm working on an upcoming series for the YouTube channel about it because it really was life changing.
And probably the most life changing exercises was actually writing down my personal values for the first time. And one of the ones that jumped out to me as as an aspirational value, one that I really desire: The value of agency.
Now for the process of LifeFocus, you go through a deck of cards that has different common values that people might have - things like integrity or safety or adventure. I chose several but one that really just jumped out to me was was agency. It was the second I saw that word on the card in front of me as I was going through the prompts. It just jumped out at me. And it's because it's something I have desired but hasn't really been a part of my professional life because of my profession. And so by the very nature being an officer in the Air Force, you don't exactly have a lot of what I would call “autonomy,” not a lot of agency. And it's obvious because it's it's part of the job.
It's a incredible job that I've experienced - this path of being an Air Force Officer but it's come with its trade offs, and one of those biggest ones is agency and that's why I wanted to talk about it in this edition of the newsletter.
Oof, so how do we talk about this? I think it's it's top of mind for me because when I realized how important this value was, I knew I had to start making some some changes to at least start putting in the building blocks to make some serious changes.
It’s also top of mind for me right now because this realization of wanting more agency made us realize that our current assignment was going to severely compromise this value over the 4 year period (mainly due to multiple training exercises and deployments that severely limit our ability to take leave or prioritize family.) We didn’t have a lot of options, but one became a clear winner. We decided to apply for the Air Force Officer Instructor board with the hope of becoming instructors at Squadron Officer School. It's a bit of a career change and certainly not the most traditional path for intelligence officers to progress through their career.
But we knew it was something that would offer a little bit more reliability, a little bit more stability. This would offer fewer deployments, more time together, and the structure of a instructing environment. We really want to be in an environment where we have the agency, the autonomy to shape the classroom and focus on teaching leadership principles to the next generation of young officers. Frankly it’s much more aligned with my strengths. Honestly, it was so obvious that this was the right move for us because it is it will allow a transition in our career that that will be less - for lack of a better term - aggressive in terms of “checking the right boxes,” but start building the blocks that are necessary to take these important values off the back burner.
There's a whole laundry list of priorities Savannah and I have ignored but we’re taking steps to change that. But I really just wanted to think about agency today because agency in its own way is a type of freedom. There's this odd duality that I've experienced as a member of the military. You're part of an organization that's designed to protect freedom, but in doing so, you give up a lot of choices that the average person has in America. Where you live, your job, your immediate community - And that's part of the deal. But it's not something that has been easy and it's had a greater impact and challenge for Savannah and me - even more than I ever expected.
And that trade off has allowed for some incredible professional opportunities. It's taken Savannah and me all the way across the world to be in Korea for a year. I'm have this challenging but hopefully rewarding deployment for the first time in my career. And these are things that informed who I am. And frankly it’s these trade offs that drove me to write this Substack to help others who struggle living out their values.
That’s why these trade offs are things that I'd never ever want to change. But I think it's important to recognize that if I'm being honest at this stage of life, it's time for change - to start protecting these values, both in my within my military career and beyond it because what I've realized is - and I think the gut level, honest truth that I'm thinking about - is if if I continue to compromise some of the things that I most value, the desires of who I want to be as a person. If I continue to compromise those in the interest of what what's generally unspoken but expected in terms of the traditional career path in the military. I will not be living up to my potential and in fact I will be compromising my potential.
And that's really the the core reason why Savannah and I just knew that being instructors at Air University for the next chapter was the right move. It's much, much more in the lanes of the things I'm most passionate about - talking about leadership and productivity. These are the things that I want to bring to Maxwell as an instructor and helping young officers who have struggled with the same things I have really struggled with in my military career. A healthy balance of professional success and, and a successful, happy personal life.
It's really tough and it's not just in the military, but certainly the military is the lens through which I've been thinking about this stuff.
So that's why I wanted to talk about agency. That's the ideal I'm striving towards not not just because I like feel like “oh it'd be cool to have, you know, time freedom, financial freedom.” No, I really diligently want to work towards putting the priorities in place that allow for an abundant life. That can be the picture of what we're striving for.
Thank you for reading! I hope this reflection on agency resonates with you. As always, may the Force be with you, and Happy Fourth of July from Nashville!
-Riley
beautiful riley