Permission

If I had one wish for this coming year, it would be to grant endless permission. To myself, to you - to anyone who needs it or wants it. Here's a list, in no particular order. If you need me to write you a note, let me know. I'll do it.

Permission to be who you are.

Permission to need what you need without any justification at all.

Permission to walk the paths that interest you the most.

Permission to surround yourself with more than enough support - you don't have to do everything on your own.

Permission to rest first, work after.

Permission to put down some of the efforting that being an adult seems to involve.

Permission to be ridiculous if you feel like it. To be delightfully frivolous. To do things that are gasp unproductive, just because you want to.

Permission to stop and smell the roses - I saw an old man in a mobility scooter doing that the other day and it made me smile and move a little more slowly myself.

Permission to take time for yourself.

Permission to reject reality and substitute your own.

Permission to use the best china. Wear the special clothes. Use the nice pencils.

Mostly, permission to trust your own inner compass. Western late stage capitalism has ideas about how you should behave, how you should look, the roles you should play, the way you should be. It's hard to tune all that conditioning out. But here's permission to do what you can to let your own heart be louder, and listen so deeply to your own self that some of that external noise starts to fade.

May the year ahead be good to you.