You are waiting for a permission slip. You may not realise this, but most people, in some part of their lives, are waiting for a permission slip.
You are waiting for someone to tell you it is allowed to leave the job. To stop doing the thing you have been doing for years that you no longer want to do. To rest without earning it. To stop performing the version of yourself that worked at 28 and stopped working at 34. To want a smaller life. To want a bigger one. To start the thing. To stop the other thing. To say the sentence out loud.
The permission slip is not coming.
Nobody is going to come and tell you it is allowed. The boss does not have the slip. Your parents do not have the slip. Your partner does not have the slip, even on the good days, even when they are trying. Your therapist does not have the slip. The bestselling self-help author whose book you are reading right now does not have the slip. Nobody does. The slip does not exist.
This sounds like bad news. It is actually the best news in any self-help book you will read this year.
The book this is from
What The Duck Am I Doing With My Life? has a chapter on this. The Permission Slip You Were Never Going to Get. It opens with the observation that most adults are operating on permissions they assume someone else has to grant. They are waiting for the email, the phone call, the meeting, the offer, the green light. The pivot. The thing that lands and says: okay, you can start.
It is not landing.
The book argues that almost every meaningful change in a life happens once the person stops waiting for the permission and writes it themselves. Writes it on a napkin, even. The form does not matter. The point is that the slip exists because the reader decides it exists.
Two examples
One. You have wanted to leave the job for a long time. You are waiting for the right time. The right time is the next email from a recruiter, you have decided. The next time your boss treats you badly enough to justify leaving. The next quarter when you have built up six months of savings. The right time is always the next thing that has not happened yet. The book argues: nobody is going to email you. The right time was last year. The permission slip is in your wallet right now if you want it to be.
Two. You have wanted to start the thing for a long time. Side project. Different life. New direction. You have been waiting until you have time. Until you have figured out exactly what the thing is. Until the conditions are right. The book argues: the conditions will not be right. They will be different versions of wrong. The slip is the decision to start the thing while the conditions are still wrong.
This is not a productivity argument. It is not “just do it.” The Nike-poster version of this advice is what makes most people roll their eyes at the self-help genre. The book’s version is gentler and more accurate, which is: the slip is yours. The waiting is the cost. The waiting is more expensive than starting.
What the slip actually says
The book includes a slip you can use. Tear it out of the book if you have the paperback. Photocopy it if you have the Kindle, which is a joke that does not translate to the digital edition. Adapt it for whatever you are deciding.
It says, roughly: I have decided. This is the next thing. I will be wrong about parts of it. I will be right about more of it than I expect. Either way, I am no longer waiting for someone else to say it is okay. It is okay because I said so.
The book is the same shape as that paragraph. Short. Permission-based. Aware that the person reading has read all the other books already. What The Duck Am I Doing With My Life? is the book for the reader who is between things and does not know yet whether the between is a rut or a chapter break.
It is a chapter break. The slip is yours.
What The Duck Am I Doing With My Life?
Feeling Lost, Stuck, or Like a Walking Disaster? A Funny Self-Help Guide to Finding Direction, Purpose, and Yourself
Read the book page → Get on Amazon →