Asking for Permission

I realized that I try to ask for permission too often in life.

There are the little things that I do without thinking. I ask, “Can I go to the bathroom?” when I’m at a friend’s house for the first time. Sometimes they’ll playfully respond, “No, you can’t!” with a big grin.

When I got a new manager at work, I asked, “Could I have a particular day off?” He was perfectly fine with it and added, “This is not a prison. You don’t need to ask for permission!”

Sometimes I’ll ask my boyfriend if it’s okay that I hang out with a friend on the weekend. He responds with, “You don’t need to ask me, love. Go have fun.”

THE PAST

This begs the question, why do I ask for permission from people who don’t think I need to be asking them? I believe it’s a bad habit from being in environments for many years where there were structured rules on what I could or could not do – i.e. living at home, living in a dorm, going to school, working at companies.

Don’t get me wrong, boundaries and rules are great. They create order out of chaos. They teach us good judgement when we are young fledglings in this world. They help us stay in between the lines – safe from things outside the lines which are dangerous, unethical, or involve monsters that will eat you alive.

When I was a Developer Advocate at Google, we wrote social media and blog posts for developers in the public. I ran the content for these posts by a bunch of people before releasing. They would proofread and give me feedback on what to add, nix, or re-word. For any type of product launch, there was an even beefier process. We needed approval from a lengthy list of people including PR and management. Having a protocol is understandable, but nevertheless, the process could take an unpredictable amount of time and gave me anxiety.

THE PRESENT

When I started writing posts on my personal blog, I asked people to proofread it for me. Unknowingly, I was creating my own “launch process” for my blog and recruiting people to give me the OK on whether it was good enough to launch or not. However, my proofreaders have busy lives, and they couldn’t always read it right away. So there I was, anxiously waiting to post something but blocked on waiting for my proofreader to review it. In this new world without any rules on my work, I asked myself, “Why am I creating these artificial roadblocks on releasing my posts?” I realized I don’t need anyone’s sign-off. I could trust my gut on whether something was good enough to share.

Another perk of a personal blog is that I’m no longer representing another organization or entity. I don’t need to be consistent with someone else’s voice or brand, no matter how awesome that brand is.

I can speak in MY voice.

I can use expletives @!@#%!@#*$ to complain and rant about things. I can type this blog post as a text message – wutcha doin? I can hold down the SHIFT and 1 key as long as I want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (My favorite punctuation mark.) I can use asterisks to cry *tears of joy!* And I can make it rain emojis. 🙂 😀 😯 😛 😐 😉 🙁 😡 😕 😯 🙂 😉 😮 😡 😐 😀 🙂 😀 😯 😛 😐 😉 🙁 😡 😕 😯 🙂 😉 😮 😡 😐 😀 🙁 😡 😕 😯 🙂 😉 😮 😐 😯 😮 😀 😯 😛 😐 😉 🙁 😀 🙂

But more than grammatical freedom, is the freedom to express my ideas in an unapologetic way. I can talk about whatever topic weighs on my mind or makes me super giddy regardless of how random it is (see Monopoly post). I can share my faith journey too! There’s no need to be politically correct here.

REFLECTION

There can be a very thin line between being considerate of other people’s boundaries and caring too much about what they think. Unfortunately, it’s very easy for me to cross into that latter territory. I ask for permission too much because I want approval from the other person on the course of action I’m about to take.

For example, earlier this year, I felt the need to ask everyone around me for permission to leave my job. While I didn’t exactly ask for permission from my family, I ask the loaded question: “Hypothetically, what do you think about me leaving Google?” I also felt like I needed to get permission from my team to leave. I wasn’t sure what to say, how to say it, or if they’d dislike me for leaving. It turned out that I was overly worried and was able to leave the team on a friendly note – at least I think so. 😛

Now the path to my future can literally take any direction. I can go this way or that, or even head backwards if I wanted! Regardless of what I choose, I know that I can use my inner compass to guide me.

I no longer need to ask for permission from anyone to live my fullest life.

As the James Bay “Let it Go” song goes, “Why don’t you be you, and I’ll be me.”