Have you noticed that you're constantly explaining yourself?
You explain why you chose this and not that. You explain why you changed your mind. You explain why you're tired, why you need time, why you don't want to go. Not because anyone asks. Because you feel like you owe it.
Explaining yourself is the adult version of asking for permission. And you've been doing it your whole life.
The cost
Every time you explain yourself without being asked, you're saying: my decision isn't enough. It needs to be validated. It needs to make sense to you before it can make sense to me.
And that eats away at you. It eats your time, it eats your energy, it eats away at your relationship with yourself. Because you start living for the justification instead of living for the choice.
The day
The day you stopped explaining yourself wasn't dramatic. It was a normal conversation where someone asked you why and you said: because. And you sat with the silence that followed. And the silence didn't kill you.
Quite the opposite. It tasted like freedom.
The truth
The people who love you don't need your explanations. They need your presence. And the ones who need your explanations to accept you. those people don't love you. They love the version they can control.
Explaining yourself is asking for permission to be who you are. And you no longer need that permission.