What exactly is it you're waiting for?
Seriously. Like, what are you waiting for before you actually start living your life like it's yours?
More money? Better timing? Maybe for your wife to understand? Or for your boss to notice? Or maybe you're waiting for the kids to get older? Basically, anything that sends you a nice clean signal that says "Okay, now you can go."
The reason I ask that is because waiting for permission to change your life sounds like a fine idea when you're in the middle of it. It feels like the "right thing to do".
But yeah…probably not.
More often than not, it's probably just fear keeping you from doing the thing.
That's the Permission Tax. It's the last tax in this series and it represents all the years you lose waiting for some unwritten okay from some unknown person or place before you let yourself want more, change course, do the thing, or start actually living for real.
And the shitty part? Most guys don't even realize they're waiting.
I sure as hell didn't.
During my waking coma years, I wasn't just sitting around saying, "I'm waiting for permission to live." That would've been too obvious (and weird frankly). I was just existing. Working. Taking care of what needed taking care of. Getting through the day. Smoking, eating like shit, zoning out, doing the next thing, and convincing myself that this was just what life had become.
But underneath all that was something I couldn't see yet.
Looking back, I realize I had given up because the approval I was waiting for never came.
Surprise, nobody came to tell me it was okay to want a different life. Nobody told me it was ok that plans change. Nobody said, "Paul, you've done enough performing now. You can go ahead and start being yourself now."
So I waited.
Not consciously. That's what makes this one so dangerous. You don't experience it as waiting. You experience it as being realistic.
You tell yourself now isn't the time. You tell yourself other people need you. You tell yourself you're being responsible. You tell yourself you'll do it later, when things calm down.
But later keeps moving (Incidentally, this is one of my favorite songs about later – Next Year by Donovan Woods).
Nice Guy Syndrome in Midlife: The Tax Nobody Warned You About
That's how a guy loses years without even realizing it.
The Career Tax costs you promotions. The Money Tax costs you income. The Relationship Tax costs you friendships. The Time Tax costs you hours. The Respect Tax costs you influence and respect. The Identity Tax costs you the sound of your own voice.
But the Permission Tax?
That one costs you motion.
It keeps your whole life paused.
And if you've lived that way long enough, you know exactly what I mean. There's this weird sense that you're an observer in your life instead of actually inside it controlling it. You can see what you want, or at least the outline of it, but you keep waiting for the circumstances to be just right.
That's the trap.
The circumstances aren't what make it right. Your decision does.
Machiavelli wrote about fortune and action and how some guys wait on fortune. And then other guys get the balls, judgment, and force to actually act before the world gives them perfect conditions.
That's the part Nice Guys hate.
Because we were taught that good guys wait their turn. Good guys don't impose. Good guys don't move until everyone agrees they're allowed to move.
News flash. They might not ever agree.
A lot of people benefit from you staying right where you are. Others just don't care enough to notice. And some people love the version of you that doesn't ask for much because that version is easier to live with.
That doesn't make them villains. It just means that they're not coming to save you from the life you quietly accepted.
The guys who never see this just keep waiting. They become old guys with full calendars, empty eyes, and a long list of things they almost did.
The guys who see it and get bitter have their own problem. They realize they waited too long, then spend the next ten years blaming everyone who didn't give them permission. I get the anger. Trust me. But anger is only useful if it gets you moving. Otherwise it's just another rut you get stuck in.
Then there are the guys who finally break in the right direction.
That's what happened to me. Something finally broke in me, but in a good way. I didn't suddenly have a perfect plan. I didn't get fearless all of a sudden. I didn't become some polished version of myself who knew exactly where everything was going.
I just got tired of waiting.
Tired enough to go back to school. Tired enough to start writing. Tired enough to tell my story in public. Tired enough to stop asking some invisible authority whether I was allowed to live the life that actually mattered to me.
And once you get that ball rolling, you don't unroll it.
What Twenty Years of People Pleasing Does to Your Sense of Self
This is the last piece in this series for a reason.
Because every tax we've talked about comes back to this one eventually. At some point, you either keep paying or you stop waiting for someone else to cancel the bill.
Nobody is coming to tell you it's okay.
Not your boss. Not your wife. Not your parents. Not the culture. Not the younger version of you who thought someday would come with instructions.
The permission you've been waiting for isn't coming.
Let that rattle around in the ole noggin for a bit.
And then look at the thing you already know you've been waiting to do.
That's it.
That's the door.
Open it.
Hit reply and tell me what you've been waiting for. I love a good success story.