You've got one life to live and lots of people who want to tell you how to live it.

Your parents may want you to be successful. They may want you to become a doctor or a lawyer. They may tell you that you need to make a bunch of money. Your friends may be already on their way down that road and it may look attractive.

I have a friend whose dad was a successful financier. So he grew up thinking, "I need to do something like that too." My friend went to an Ivy League school, graduated, and made a bunch of money on Wall St. He looked successful on the outside, but he was miserable on the inside. Why? Because what he really wanted to do was become a missionary.

Another friend had a father who was one of the top CEOs in the country. He thought, "I need to be a CEO like my dad." He became a successful CEO, but he too was miserable. Why? Because God made him with a desire to tell his stories using the medium of film.

You've got one life to live and plenty of people want to tell you how you should live it. But before you go listening to them, here's a question to ask: "Do they know the real me?"

In most cases, the answer will be, "No, they don't." They don't know your heart. They don't know what you really love to do. 

What they know is what they would want to do if they were you. But here's the deal, you can't live their life. Your life is far too valuable to try and live it to please somebody else.

God built us with all kinds of wonderful unique characteristics. He knit us together in our mother's womb and knows everything about us down to the tiniest piece of DNA. We live our lives for an audience of one. Both of my friends decided to live the life God created them for (as a missionary and a filmmaker) and are loving it.

Are you living for someone else's approval or their idea of what would make you happy? If you're waiting for permission to live the life God made you to live, then here it is. No one knows your heart like you do. Listen to it and live the life that no one else can live for you.