NL Post #23 — The Story You Were Given

Your Permission Slip to Freedom Starts With You

Have you ever stopped to wonder how much of the life you’re living was actually chosen by you? How many of your beliefs, decisions, ambitions, and expectations were shaped by the people around you long before you ever thought to question them?

From childhood, we’re handed a script. We’re taught what success should look like, which paths are considered responsible, what dreams are realistic, and which ideas are simply too far outside the expectations of society. Somewhere along the way, many of us begin outsourcing our thinking, our permission, and ultimately our authority to the collective. We become so accustomed to seeking approval that we forget we have the freedom to question the very lives we’re creating.

But what happens when curiosity begins asking questions outside of groupthink?

What happens when you stop defining your life through someone else’s expectations and begin exploring what genuinely excites you? Your passions, your desires, your curiosity, and the possibilities that exist beyond the limitations you’ve inherited?

For me, those questions eventually changed everything.

The Life I Was Handed

When I was a young adult living in Oregon, I spent years doing something I didn’t fully recognize at the time. I was outsourcing my power. I allowed the opinions, fears, and expectations of the people closest to me to influence how I viewed myself and what I believed was possible for my future.

I was battling addiction and depression while navigating a toxic family dynamic. My life wasn’t heading in a direction that inspired me, and somewhere deep inside, I knew there had to be something more. Yet whenever I entertained the possibility of doing something different, I found myself surrounded by people who were quick to explain why my ideas wouldn’t work.

The interesting thing about those conversations is that most of these people weren’t necessarily trying to hurt me. Many genuinely cared about me. They were offering advice based on their own experiences, beliefs, and understanding of the world. But what I didn’t recognize then was that their understanding of what was possible didn’t have to become my limitation.

I had confused listening to advice with surrendering my authority.

And there’s a tremendous difference between the two.

The Release: Breaking the Script

Eventually, something inside me shifted. I began questioning the life I was living and, more importantly, the life I wanted to create. Instead of asking everyone around me whether my dreams were realistic, I started asking myself why I believed they weren’t.

One of those dreams involved leaving Oregon and moving to Las Vegas.

Now, imagine telling your friends and family that you’re battling a drinking problem and you’ve decided moving to Las Vegas is a fantastic idea. 😂

You can probably imagine the responses.

To many of the people around me, the decision seemed reckless, unrealistic, and downright ridiculous. And looking back, I can understand their concerns. But what they couldn’t see was what that decision represented to me. It wasn’t simply about moving to another city. It was about reclaiming ownership of my life and giving myself permission to discover what existed beyond the world I had always known.

For the first time, I stopped asking for permission to become the person I wanted to be.

There was an incredible sense of release in that realization. I didn’t need everyone to agree with me. I didn’t need them to understand my ambitions, validate my passions, or approve of my decisions. I could listen to their perspectives, consider the risks, and still recognize that the final decision belonged to me.

So I left Oregon.

And what happened next became a journey I couldn’t possibly have imagined.

I became sober. I pursued my passion for skydiving and BASE jumping. I met the woman who would become my wife, and I landed a dream job that others had considered nearly impossible. Slowly, experience after experience, I began creating a life that once seemed completely beyond my reach.

Not everything happened overnight. There were challenges, setbacks, uncomfortable decisions, and plenty of moments when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. But the difference was that I was finally making those decisions for myself.

I wasn’t following somebody else’s roadmap anymore.

I was discovering my own.

The Full-Circle Moment

Years later, I began noticing something fascinating whenever I returned home to Oregon.

Some of the same friends and family members who had questioned my ambitions and warned me about the decisions I was making were suddenly looking at my life through an entirely different lens. They saw someone who was sober, happy, pursuing his passions, and experiencing opportunities that once seemed impossible.

And then the conversations started changing.

Instead of telling me what I should or shouldn’t do, people began asking me how I had done it. They wanted to know what had changed, what advice I could offer, and how I had managed to create a life that seemed so different from the one I had left behind.

I remember people saying things along the lines of, “You’re so happy. You’re doing so well. You’ve got everything figured out. I want you to talk to my son and give him the advice that helped you become the person you are today.”

And I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony.

Because my response was simple.

“I ignored almost all of you.” 😂

Now, that might sound harsh, but it wasn’t coming from a place of resentment or anger. It was simply the truth. Many of the people asking me for advice were the very same people who had once told me my dreams were impossible, my ambitions were unrealistic, and my decisions were mistakes waiting to happen.

They cared about me, and I understood that. But what they didn’t understand was that the moment I stopped allowing their opinions to determine my future was the moment I began creating one.

That realization stayed with me.

Someone can love you deeply, genuinely want what’s best for you, and still be completely wrong about the life you’re capable of creating.

The Freedom to Create

Looking back, I don’t believe the greatest transformation in my life was moving to Las Vegas, becoming sober, finding my passions, or even achieving things others thought were impossible.

Those were extraordinary experiences, but they were the results of something much deeper.

The transformation began when I reclaimed my power, my permission, and my authority to make decisions about my own life.

That’s what curiosity made possible.

Curiosity invited me to question the beliefs I had inherited. Permission allowed me to explore Opportunities beyond those beliefs. Discovery opened doors I didn’t know existed, and Reflection helped me recognize which experiences genuinely aligned with the person I wanted to become.

Creation was what happened when I began acting on those discoveries.

And here’s something I’ve come to appreciate: You don’t have to reject everyone else’s advice to reclaim your authority. You simply have to stop confusing their opinions with your permission.

We all have different passions, desires, experiences, and ideas about what makes life meaningful. What excites one person might terrify another. What someone considers reckless might represent freedom to somebody else. And what society defines as success might have absolutely nothing to do with the life you genuinely want to experience.

That’s the beauty of curiosity. It gives us the opportunity to question the collective script and discover a definition of life that is uniquely our own.

So perhaps the question isn’t whether your dreams are realistic according to the people around you.

Perhaps the better question is whether you’re willing to become curious enough to discover what’s possible for yourself.

Because the life I eventually created wasn’t something I could have planned from where I started. I couldn’t have imagined all the people I would meet, the opportunities I would discover, or the experiences that would shape the person I am today.

All I knew was that I wanted something different, and I was finally willing to give myself permission to find out what that might look like.

A Question to Sit With

Take a moment and reflect on the life you’re living today. Are there dreams you’ve quietly abandoned because someone convinced you they weren’t realistic? Are there passions you’ve ignored because they didn’t fit the expectations of your family, friends, or society?

And perhaps most importantly, whose voice are you listening to when you decide what’s possible for your life?

You don’t have to have everything figured out. You don’t need a perfect plan, and you certainly don’t need everyone’s approval.

Sometimes the greatest act of freedom is simply giving yourself permission to become curious again.

This is your permission slip to freedom.

Step out of the story you were given and into the one you came here to create.

Remember. Reclaim. Create.

Justin Charles Allman
Curiosity to Creation​
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