The First Time
Ahh… The first time. Before it had a name. Before anyone called it Waiting For Permission.
Do you remember that first moment?
The curiosity that quietly filled every breath as the seconds passed.
Maybe you were alone. Maybe you were surrounded by people.
The setting was different. The experience was the same.
One moment everything around you felt ordinary.
The next…
something changed.
The sound of the trees became louder. The leaves seemed to carry a rhythm you had never noticed before.
If music was playing, every beat suddenly felt alive. As though you could hear sounds that had been there all along but had somehow remained hidden until now.
Reality itself became vivid.
Sharper. Closer.
And then you noticed something else.
Your chest felt lighter. Everything you had been carrying inside suddenly became quiet.
For the first time in a long time…
possibility felt real.
Waiting For Permission Begins
Normally experiences come and go.
You enjoy them. You make memories. Then life quietly moves on.
Maybe it lasts a day. Maybe a week. Maybe even a month.
Eventually it becomes another story you tell. Another chapter you close.
Because that’s what most experiences do.
They arrive.
They leave.
But this one was different.
The moment never arrived.
It carried something about it that refused to let go.
It wasn’t only the excitement. It wasn’t only the memories.
It unlocked something that had been quietly waiting inside you.
Something you didn’t know existed until that moment gave it a language.
Nobody had really taught you about it.
You had probably heard people speak about purpose. About passion. About calling.
But hearing about something and experiencing it are two completely different worlds.
This experience became a doorway.
A doorway into a version of yourself you had never met before.
Looking back now, I realise some experiences do more than create memories. They introduce us to different versions of ourselves and different possibilities for our future. Sometimes the hardest part is returning to the life we knew before we discovered them… explored further in Living Between Worlds.
And once you had met that version…
going back suddenly became much harder.
Because without the experience…
you could no longer reach the part of yourself it had introduced you to.
Curiosity had already taken root.
Something inside you wanted to return.
Again.
And again.
Maybe that’s why…
the moment never really arrived.
It simply refused to leave.
Waiting For Permission
Your first real experience with the awareness of time became more vivid as the months turned into years chasing an experience that once honoured your name but eventually opened another door.
A strange door.
A door that, once opened, never seemed to fully close.
Like a child waiting for their parents to finally say yes, you stood there exposed to your own thoughts, waiting for permission.
Waiting for the right moment. Waiting for certainty. Waiting for life to somehow reveal that now was the time.
The strange thing was that waiting didn’t feel like suffering.
It felt responsible. It felt mature. It felt safe.
Looking back now, I realise that waiting rarely begins with laziness. More often, it begins when we slowly learn that certain versions of ourselves are safer, more acceptable and easier for others to recognise. The version we wanted to become quietly steps aside while another version learns how to survive… explored deeper in The Version They Needed.
Like an unfinished book with a beginning and a middle but no visible ending, you convinced yourself that eventually the final chapter would arrive.
The uncomfortable part was never what the experience did to you.
The uncomfortable part was believing that by postponing yourself, life would eventually reward you for your patience.
Looking back now, I realise that many of the reasons we postpone ourselves are inherited long before we understand them. Expectations, responsibility and ideas about who we should become often arrive through the people who raised us… explored deeper in What My Father Passed Down.
And then one day, after enough time had passed, a thought appeared.
Quietly.
Without warning.
What if all this chasing was simply an excuse?
An excuse to avoid responsibility.
An excuse to avoid difficulty.
An excuse to avoid the possibility of failing while truly trying to live.
The strange thing was that the thought didn’t stay for long.
It disappeared as quietly as it had arrived.
Maybe because you never gave it enough time to settle.
Maybe because the reflection in the mirror had become too uncomfortable to study.
Maybe because some questions become dangerous the moment we allow ourselves to answer them.
So instead, you returned to the experiences that gave you a temporary feeling of being alive.
Because even if the feeling only lasted for a few hours, it was still easier than admitting that waiting for permission had become the most important decision you had ever made.
The Years Waiting For Permission
The hardest part to digest was the betrayal of time.
Not the betrayals committed by people.
Those eventually become stories.
People leave. People apologise. People are forgiven. People are forgotten.
But this betrayal was different.
It was silent.
And because it was silent, you trusted it.
You trusted time when you were young. You trusted it when your energy felt endless. You trusted it when your ambitions felt bigger than your circumstances.
You trusted it when anger convinced you there was still plenty of time. You trusted it when sadness convinced you there would always be another chance.
And because time never argued with you, you believed it was on your side.
Until one day you woke up and realised something uncomfortable.
The years were gone.
Looking back now, I realise the years rarely disappear through one dramatic decision. They disappear through repetition. Through routines, habits and small adjustments that quietly become identity before we notice what is happening… explored deeper in Why You Stay Stuck Unaware.
Not stolen violently.
Not taken by force.
Simply agreed to.
The strange thing was that time hadn’t betrayed you at all.
It had simply continued doing what it had always promised to do.
Move.
And now when you looked into the mirror, you saw your reflection.
But you didn’t see yourself.
The face was familiar. The eyes were familiar. The history was familiar.
But something felt absent.
Looking back now, I realise there comes a moment when the life we built no longer feels fully familiar. Not because anything dramatic happened, but because a part of us quietly begins noticing what has been missing all along… explored further in The Version That Started Noticing.
As though the person who once stood behind that reflection had quietly stepped away a long time ago.
The cruel part was that nobody had ever taught you how to stand in front of the mirror long enough to survive what it might show you.
So you looked away.
As most people do.
Because some reflections don’t break us when we see them.
They break us when we recognise them.
The Permission Nobody Gives
The beautiful thing about waiting was that it never felt dangerous.
It felt easy.
A beautiful lie that whispered:
You only live once.
A lie that justified why action could wait.
Responsibilities belonged to the future version of you.
The disciplined version.
The stronger version.
The version that would eventually arrive.
So the present version of you made peace with waiting.
Relax.
Live in the moment.
There is still time.
Today’s problems do not need to be solved today.
And slowly, without noticing, comfort became safety.
Safety became habit.
And habit locked the door.
Not a physical door.
A door leading to the unknown.
A door leading to a version of yourself that always seemed to belong to the future.
And for a long time, that explanation was enough.
Until life introduced you to a discovery so brutal that for the first time, you could not look away.
Nobody was coming.
Not to rescue you.
Not to save you.
Not to give you permission.
The people you once promised you would change for had already made peace with the possibility that you never would.
Even when your words were sincere.
Even when your intentions were real.
Because they had heard the story before.
Many times.
And as you stood there, a shadow of the person you once believed you would become, another discovery quietly appeared.
The door you thought was locked…
was never locked.
It had been open the entire time.
The person who convinced you to wait was never the future.
It was the present version of you.
The same version that has now become your past.
And perhaps that is why the silence feels so heavy.
Because now, tired.
Older.
Without the energy you once carried so effortlessly.
Surrounded by distractions, responsibilities and noise.
You discover something you spent years trying not to know:
You were never waiting for permission.
You were waiting for yourself.
Conclusion: The Permission Nobody Gives
Maybe that’s why waiting feels so safe.
Because waiting allows you to believe that the story hasn’t ended yet.
That one day, when you are ready.
When you are confident.
When you are disciplined.
When life finally becomes easier.
Then you will begin.
And because that day never officially arrives, neither does the responsibility of admitting that you chose to wait.
The strange thing is that nobody ever tells you that permission works this way.
Nobody tells you that after enough years pass, waiting stops feeling temporary.
It starts feeling like identity.
You stop introducing yourself as the person you wanted to become.
You start introducing yourself as the person who almost did.
Looking back now, I realise that beneath many of our unfinished dreams lives a promise we once made to ourselves. A future that once felt close enough to touch before time, responsibility and fear slowly taught us to look away… explored deeper in The Promise You Forgot You Made.
And perhaps that is why certain moments become unbearable.
Not because they remind you of what you lost.
But because they remind you that, for a long time, you believed someone was eventually coming to tell you that your life could begin.
They never came.
They were never supposed to.
Which leaves behind a question that becomes harder to escape with every passing year:
If nobody was ever going to give you permission…
Then who exactly were you waiting for?
Mpumelelo Ncwana writes about the psychology behind decisions, identity, and the systems that shape behaviour.