You Don't Need Permission to Change Your Life

There's a strange thing that happens when you decide to change your life. People get....uncomfortable.

Not necessarily because you're doing something wrong. Not because your plans are unreasonable or because you haven't thought things through. Sometimes it's simply because you've decided to do something that doesn't fit the version of you they've grown accustomed to.

And people, especially those you've known the longest, can have a difficult time accepting that you might not be the same person you were twenty years ago.

They remember your mistakes. They remember the poor decisions, the failures, the times you stumbled, and the times you probably should have listened to somebody else.

What they sometimes forget is everything you've done since.

The years of getting up and going to work. The responsibilities you've accepted. The commitments you've honored. The difficult lessons you've learned. The things you've built, the people you've helped, and the person you've worked to become.

It's an interesting phenomenon, really. You can spend twenty years changing your life, and someone who knew you at twenty-five can still talk to you as though you haven't learned a goddamn thing.

But here's something I've come to understand. Other people's memories of who you were are not instructions for who you have to be. And they certainly aren't a reason to stop moving forward.

The Comfort of Other People's Expectations

Most of us are raised to pursue some variation of the same life.

Find a good job. Buy a house. Fill it with things. Work hard. Pay your bills. Keep accumulating. Retire someday, hopefully with enough money and good health left to enjoy whatever years remain.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that life. Plenty of people find happiness in it.

But what happens when they don't?

What happens when you wake up one morning, look around at everything you've accumulated, and realize that you're maintaining a life you don't particularly want anymore?

The house is too big. The possessions are unnecessary. The obligations keep multiplying. You're spending more time paying for things, fixing things, and worrying about things than you are actually experiencing life.

At what point are you allowed to say, "I don't want to do this anymore?"

Apparently, for some poeple, that's a controversial question.

Because choosing a different path can look an awful lot like making a mistake to someone who would never consider taking it.

But their definition of security doesn't have to be yours. Their definition of success doesn't have to be yours. And their fears about what might happen don't have to become the boundaries of your existence.

Experience is Supposed to Change Us

I started training in karate at forty years old. I wasn't particularly interested in whether anyone thought I was too old to begin. I wanted to learn something difficult, something that would challenge me physically and mentally, and I walked into a dojo and started.

Nearly five years later, I earned my black belt, Shodan rank. I'm now working on my Nidan (second degree).

I've also spent years taking in foster dogs, more than thirty of them, each one requiring time, patience, commitment, and responsibility.

I've made plenty of mistakes in my life too. Some of them were significant. Some cost me more than I care to remember.

But I've also spent decades learning from them. And that's the part of getting older that I find so fascinating. We're supposed to gain wisdom through experience, yet we're sometimes expected to keep living according to decisions we made when we knew considerably less about ourselves.

At forty-five, I don't think the same I did at twenty-five. I don't value the same things. I don't want the same things.

And thank god for that. Imagine going through twenty years of challenges, successes, failures, responsibilities, and hard-earned lessons only to arrive at exactly the same understanding of life you had when you started - what would have been the point?

Concern Isn't the Same as Authority

I understand that when people care about you, they worry.

They imagine the things that could go wrong. They question your decisions. They offer advice, sometimes whether you've asked for it or not.

And most of the time, their intentions are good.

But there's an important distinction between caring about somebody and believing you should have a say in how they live.

You can love someone without agreeing with their decisions. You can be concerned about their future without assuming they haven't considered it. You can offer advice without expecting obedience.

And you can respect someone even when their choices make absolutely no sense to you.

That's what I believe real support looks like and I've tried like hell to give this to those I love. But it doesn't require agreement.

It requires recognizing that another adult has the right to make decisions about their own life, including decisions you might never make for yours.

I don't need everyone to understand where I'm going. I don't even need everyone to agree that I should go. But I do expect the freedom to decide for myself.

Choosing Less Isn't Giving Up

Lately, I've been thinking a great deal about what I actually want the next chapter of my life to look like.

And I've come to a fairly simple conclusion. I want less stuff and more experiences.

Less maintenance and more movement. Less obligation to things that no longer serve me and more time spent doing things that matter.

I want to travel. I want to train. I want to write. I want to meet interesting people, visit strange places, and see how much of this world I can experience while I'm still healthy enough to enjoy it.

That might mean selling a house. It might mean getting rid of possessions I've accumulated over decades. It might mean making decisions that seem unconventional to people who are perfectly happy with the lives they've built.

That's fine.

I'm not asking anyone else to live this way. I'm choosing it for myself.

And there is a tremendous difference between running away from a life and recognizing that you've outgrown it.

The Road is Yours

One of the things martial arts has taught me is that you have to take responsibility for your own decisions.

You can have teachers. You can have people who guide you, challenge you, and help you see things you might otherwise miss.

But nobody can do the work for you.

Nobody can train for you.

And when something goes wrong, nobody else can step into your body and deal with the consequences.

Life isn't much different.

You should listen to people who care about you. You should consider their concerns. You should question your own assumptions and make sure you're not confusing impulsiveness with courage.

But ultimately, you're the one who has to wake up every morning and live with the choices you've made.

Not your parents.

Not your siblings.

Not your friends.

You.

There will always be someone who thinks they know what you should be doing. Someone who believes you're making a mistake. Someone who remembers a version of you that no longer exists.

You don't have to convince them otherwise.

You just have to keep becoming the person you want to be.

Because at some point, you have to stop asking whether other people are comfortable with the direction of your life and start asking yourself a much more important question.

If I keep living the way I'm living now, am I going to be happy with where I end up?

If the answer is no, perhaps it's time to change direction.

You don't need permission.

You never did.

Choose Reinvention.