Hey friends,

I'm writing this from my bed in Bali, speaking into my phone because typing feels like too much right now. I've got a pretty aggressive flu, body aches, the works. And here's the thing – tomorrow morning, I board a plane to Papua New Guinea.

The Goal (And Why This Matters)

We're not just taking a trip. We're traveling to one of the most remote regions of Papua New Guinea to meet with the Tolai people, participate in their consciousness ceremonies, and sit with their elders to understand how they view the natural world and human consciousness.

This isn't a casual visit. It requires a small plane to get there, then hours of driving through challenging terrain. It's the kind of opportunity that might come once in a lifetime – if you're willing to architect it.

The Reality Check

But here's where permissionless living gets real:

• Problem #1: I'm the sole camera operator and gear manager for this shoot. Every technical aspect falls on me. And I'm currently running a fever.

• Problem #2: Evan's visa still isn't cleared. She's about to board a 30-hour flight to Papua New Guinea without knowing if they'll let her in the country. Her option was to play it safe and stay home. Instead, she chose to get on the plane and figure it out when she lands.

• Problem #3: Our fixer – the person handling all our logistics on the ground – is recovering from malaria. She's had it multiple times before. She could easily say "I'm out." Instead, she's saying "I'll be ready."

  
  

This is a very small crew heading into a very remote area with a very ambitious goal. And literally everything that could complicate this mission is currently happening.

The Permission-Less Reality

Here's what I need you to understand: permissionless living isn't easy.

In many ways, waiting for someone else to give you the promotion, award you the contract, or grant you access is actually easier. You can sit back and wait for that door to open. You can spend your whole life waiting.

But when you choose to architect your own experiences and outcomes, you can't mistake that choice for it being simple or comfortable.

The Buddhist traditions got this right – suffering is an inherent part of life. But here's what they also understood: we choose our hard.

You can choose the hard of waiting, wondering, and watching opportunities pass by.

Or you can choose the hard of showing up despite the obstacles, figuring it out as you go, and refusing to stand down when things get complicated.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Tomorrow, I will get on that plane. I will deliver what I need to deliver in Papua New Guinea. I hope to do it with less pain, but my body will do what it does – and that won't stop me.

Evan will land in a country that might not let her in, and we'll solve that problem on the ground.

Our fixer will show up despite recovering from malaria because that's what commitment looks like.

And if we exercise every single option and it doesn't work? Then it doesn't work. But we're not standing down because we're sick, or because we don't have a visa, or because we have 15 other excuses why this won't succeed.

We're going to show up at the door. We're going to keep asking. We're going to ask nicely, then we're going to try to outsmart the problem.

And I have a feeling we just might pull this off.

The Freedom in Choosing Your Hard

There's something liberating about this approach. I'm not worried every day that this might happen or that might go wrong. I'm not paralyzed by the possibility that we might fly all the way to Papua New Guinea and get denied entry.

When you truly embrace permissionless living, you stop making decisions based on what might go wrong and start making them based on what you're trying to create.

You architect experiences that few people get to have because they waited for permission. Or because they opted out when they saw one, two, three, or five obstacles standing in their way.

Your Turn

This is permissionless from the ground. This is what it actually looks like when you stop consuming other people's adventures and start designing your own.

What hard are you choosing? And more importantly – what remarkable experience are you not architecting because you're waiting for the conditions to be perfect?

The conditions are never perfect. The obstacles are always there. The question isn't whether challenges will appear – it's whether you'll let them stop you from creating what you really want.

I'll update you from Papua New Guinea (assuming we make it in).

Until then, choose your hard wisely.

– Patrick

ps - If you're sitting on an idea, a dream, or an opportunity you've been waiting to pursue "when the time is right" – consider this your reminder that there's never a perfect time. There's only the time you decide to architect it into reality.