You have permission to be bad.

You have permission to not make sense.

You have permission to start.

And yes, you even have permission to not finish—though maybe you should, in a way that makes sense to you.”

Take a step. Just a small one. Once you’ve taken that tiny first step, take another. People say life is a marathon. Maybe it is. But don’t let the pressure of finishing that marathon hold you back from taking the first step. When motivational speakers frame life in terms of a marathon, they expect you to forget about today or tomorrow and just start—start working on that thing you’ve always wanted to do.

The problem with viewing goals, skills, and milestones as a marathon is the implicit expectation: if you start, you must finish. And that? That is terrifying.

So, you have my permission to start something and not finish it. Start something for the sheer joy of beginning. Start something because you never know—it might become a part of you for a lifetime. And if it doesn’t? That’s okay. No one can predict, before starting something and getting reasonably far along, whether they’ll even like doing it.

Take art, for example. I used to be good at it. But, oh god, how much I didn’t enjoy it after just a short while. And that’s okay.

It is okay:

• To not know what you want to pursue for life.
• To never have a single thing that defines you.
• To have people around you who care but mistakenly push you to get serious about something you’re just trying out.
• To covet the fire in someone who has a passion and drive for something—even if you don’t. Envy is a natural emotion. It’s not bad to feel it; what matters is what you do with it. Embrace it. Channel it. It’s okay to not have a passion (yet). Don’t be too hard on yourself. Think in terms of yets.
• To need external validation. Everyone needs external validation. Those who don’t are either ascetics or they are lying, either to you or to themselves.

And most importantly:

Do not let people put you down because you started something you did not finish. What does finishing even mean? There’s no end to learning in any field, no final destination for any skill you acquire. Milestones? They’re just arbitrary markers—chosen by you, your peers, or society, pulled from conditioning or out of thin air.

Thought experiment: Take Beethoven. A master, no doubt. But he didn’t create what Daft Punk did. Some might call my comparison blasphemous, but then again—what does finishing even mean?

Or take me, learning to surf. Will I ever be a pro? Not really. Am I serious about surfing? Yes. Will I do it every single day for the rest of my life? Most definitely not. Will the word surfer define me? Not even a tenth of me. Do I enjoy surfing? You bet I do, and I hope to keep at it until my limbs give out and kids on the beach laugh at the old hag in the waves.

It is okay to love learning new things—anything. It is okay to have amateur-level skill or knowledge in many fields that bring you joy, rather than mastering one thing just because you once enjoyed it, and now it’s a chore but you can’t quit because it defines you.

If you like singing, then just sing, even learn to if you want to, you dont have to become Lady gaga to prove you accomplished something.

If you would love to play the piano, just go for it, you don’t have to be scared about the eventuality that you may never be as good as Einaudi. Do that which brings you joy.

You have permission.