“May I have permission to live?”
Big Red Car here on a cold, Texas day. Ahhh, winter is fierce in Austin By God Texas. It’s 53F and going to be 70F on Sunday. Ahhh, Texas winter is fierce. Respect to y’all who live in the Panhandle, of course.
So, the Big Red Car is talking to some of his favorite CEOs for some end-of-year chatter and some beginning-of-the-year planning. One thing that comes up is that we are often our own worst barrier to success.
The BRC has always said, “A lot of success is being 80% right, but done on time.”
This is not intended to diminish lofty goals, but to say that how we execute things is dependent upon time constaints. The only truly equal asset in the world is time. We each get the same amount of time in a day as a billionaire.
But, the big thing is we don’t seize the moment. Lately, it feels like people need permission to be great. So here it is.
We are born into the world unable to stand. Our natural instincts guide us to suckle, eat, and defecate. It is not much of a skill set.
We do not come with much useful software loaded, do we? Still, it is a good way to enter the world.
What we have to do is learn. To learn, sometimes, we need permission.
Permission Granted
You have permission to imagine and to follow your imagination.
You have permission to think before doing. Do not make thoughts your final objective.
You have permission to plan what you are going to do before you do it, to revise your plans on the fly, and to reject your plans when you feel like it.
You have permission to dance. You can learn to dance. You can teach yourself. You can dance slow and under control You can dance like a whirling dervish. Dancing IS vertical foreplay, so there is that.
You have permission to act, to do.
You have permission to fail.
You have permission to succeed in small ways, in great ways, and beyond your wildest imagination. You have permission to become a success addict.
You have permission to learn anything at any time in your life. You can learn to fly an airplane, dive into the oceans, to do calligraphy, to dance. You have permission to learn anything.
You have permission to learn what works uniquely for you and to repeat it.
You have permission to be courageous, to stand up to bullies, to speak truth to power, to be unafraid to be virtuous.
You have permission to wear white before, after, and during Labor Day.
You have permission be different, to be so freakin’ unique your own Momma doesn’t recognize you at first.
Yo have permission to be good enough on some things, lousy at others, and the world’s best at still others.
You have permission to love to cut grass, paint, power wash, and to split wood.
You have permission to give a guy at a street corner a hundred dollar bill on the off chance it might be Jesus come to test us.
You have permission to love and to love unconditionally and like a fool.
You have permission to harness fire and sit in front of a fireplace and consider how good life is.
You have permission to laugh, cry, mourn, and celebrate without explaining why.
You have permission to excel, to hit a high draw, to sink a fifty foot putt and pretend you’ve done it before.
You have permission to be do things differently like tying your shoes in a different way than the rest of mankind.
You have permission to ask for a sample taste of every kind of ice cream in the case and then decide you wanted gelato anyway.
You have permission to be hurt, damaged, sad, and to cry.
You have permission to use all the slights, the slings, the arrows of life and transform them into fuel.
You have permission to do a sack dance when good triumphs over evil.
You have permission to arrive early for church, sit in the shadows, and thank God for all He has given you.
You have permission to take your parents out to brunch after church.
You have permission to apologize without offering an explanation.
You have permission to call a friend you haven’t spoken to in a decade without telling them why.
You have permission to live your life like you know you’re going home next week.
You have permission to be happy.
Now, get the Hell out of here and use those permissions. Bless you.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Date night, y’all!
