Can You Elaborate?
Can You Elaborate?
The permission you're waiting for doesn't exist
The other day, I talked to my Intro to Business students about one of the most important skills they'll need in their careers: critical thinking.
"You need to learn how to think for yourselves instead of having others think for you."
A student's hand shot up immediately. "Can you elaborate on that?"
I smiled. "You just proved my point."
The class laughed, but here's what made that moment so revealing: he wasn't asking for clarification. He was asking me to do the thinking for him. He heard something unfamiliar and immediately looked for someone else to process it.
He was waiting for permission to have a thought.
That's not a teenager problem. That's everyone.
The Permission We're All Waiting For
We spend our entire lives waiting for someone to tell us how to live.
Waiting for our boss to recognize we're ready for more responsibility.
Waiting for an expert to validate that our approach is correct.
Waiting for someone to confirm that what we want is okay to want.
Waiting for permission to make the decision we already know we need to make.
The pattern is always the same: you're waiting for external validation instead of making internal decisions.
But no one is coming to tell you it's time to ask for the raise, leave the relationship, start the business, or change your life. No one is going to hand you a certificate that says "You're now allowed to live according to your own values."
And if you keep waiting for it, you'll wake up one day having lived someone else's version of what your life should be.
How We Learned to Wait
This isn't your fault. You were trained this way.
For eighteen years, school taught you that there's always a right answer, and someone smarter than you knows what it is. Your job was to wait for that answer, memorize it, and repeat it back correctly.
Success meant following instructions. Growth meant doing what you were told. Independence was never part of the curriculum.
Then you graduated into a world that doesn't work that way. A world where:
Most decisions don't have clear right answers
Trade-offs exist in every choice
No one is coming to tell you what to do
You have to decide for yourself what matters
But you never learned how to do that. You only learned how to wait.
The Cost of Waiting
When you're constantly waiting for permission to live your own life:
Your decisions reflect what you think other people think you should do, not what you actually want. Your career becomes what's expected rather than what's possible. Your relationships stay comfortable instead of becoming meaningful. Your time goes to obligations rather than priorities.
You become an expert at managing other people's expectations while ignoring your own.
And the worst part? You don't even realize you're doing it. You think you're being thoughtful, careful, and responsible. You don't see that you're just waiting for someone to tell you it's okay to choose.
My student wasn't being lazy when he asked me to elaborate. He genuinely believed that I should do his thinking for him. That's what eighteen years of education taught him: wait for the authority figure to provide the answer.
But you're not eighteen anymore. And no one is coming to give you the answers.
The Question
Where in your life are you waiting for permission that will never come?
What decision are you avoiding because you haven't been validated yet?
What do you want but won't pursue because no one told you it's okay to want it?
What change do you know you need to make but keep postponing because you're waiting for certainty?
The permission you're waiting for doesn't exist.
You don't need someone to tell you it's okay to live according to your values. You don't need validation to make choices that serve your life. You don't need authorization to pursue what matters to you.
You just need to stop waiting and start deciding.
The life you're building won't be perfect. You'll make mistakes. Some choices won't work out. But at least they'll be YOUR choices, made consciously, based on what actually matters to you.
That's not reckless. That's living.
What are you waiting for permission to do?
Hit reply and let me know. I read every response.
This insight about taking ownership of your choices is central to "Stop Lurking, Start Living." Sometimes the most important realization is that no one is coming to tell you how to live your life—and that's good news.
-Ricky