Freedom Is A Choice!

Having freedom in life can be considered a bit of a grey area, as after all, we have certain rules, laws, and regulations, imposed by the respective government of the country that we live in, that we must abide by. So to suggest we have absolute freedom, and we can do what we want, may not totally be 100% accurate. The rules, laws, and regulations imposed though are normally introduced for the greater protection and best interest of society overall. Any act that places oneself or other people's lives at risk or in danger, or violates a person in any way, such as speeding, murder, theft, pedophilia, etc., well they are always going to have laws imposed against them, obviously. There are many laws, rules, and regulations imposed that are perhaps against people's beliefs or religion, and we see opposition to these through the regular protests that take place, but in all fairness, and dependent to which country we reside in, most of us have the freedom to create and live a life by our own design. Unless we break the law, there's nothing stopping us from making decisions that are in our best interest to create a life blessed with happiness, success, and prosperity. Freedom consists of several definitions. Freedom is having "the power or right to act, speak, or think, as one wants". Freedom is having "the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity". Freedom is being in "a state of not being imprisoned or enslaved". Freedom is being in "a state of being unrestricted, and being able to move easily". Freedom is "having unrestricted use of something". Freedom is being in "the state of not being subject to, or affected by, something undesirable". So what does freedom look like to us though?

Freedom is an absolute blessing to have in life. Again, dependent on the country we live in, and minus the imposed government laws, rules, and regulations, we have complete freedom. The unfortunate truth about freedom though is that many people deny themselves of such a blessing. How can this be, you may ask? If people have the freedom to do what they want, say what they want, and live how they want, provided that they are not breaking any laws or regulations, then why are so many people unhappy in life? Two words; self-imprisonment! It sounds ridiculous, but people are denying themselves their right to freedom. If people were living their life in complete freedom, then we would see so many more people achieving their goals, working a career they are passionate about, and living a life by their own design. Instead, we are seeing the complete opposite. People aren't working towards their goals whatsoever, either that or they start working towards their goals, but give up. People are imprisoning themselves in a job or business they don't even enjoy, to the point they actually hate it. People are living a lifestyle that is not to their desire. People are remaining in a relationship that is unhealthy and even violent. People are living a life with next to no money in their bank account. People are basically living a life they aren't happy with. How is this freedom? This isn't a result of government rules and regulations, this is as a result of the respective individual not making decisions and executing actions that are in their own best interest, future, happiness, health, or wellbeing.

Let's have a look at the first part to the definition of freedom; "the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants". Now I'm not going to deny the fact that we are entering into a future in which we are becoming silenced in certain areas of speech, such as in regards to religion, for example. There is an online platform I use that is a classic example for denying us the freedom of speech. It is extremely discriminative and frustrating, but at the end of the day, I have more important things in life to focus on, as indeed you should too. It's the other two parts to this aspect of the definition I want to hone in on, being the right to act and think as we want. One of the biggest reasons we imprison ourselves from our right to freedom is influence. Society has basically formulated a base plan which scripts the way in which everybody should live their life. From birth, to school, to college, to working a job for 45 years, to marriage, to buying a house, to getting into debt, to starting a family, to finally paying off to debt, to retirement, and finally, to death. Throw in divorce in there as well as an added acceptable life event. This is the planogram to life basically, what society has classed as normality, and the expectation on exactly how everyone should live. Go against this, and your basically frowned upon, or seen as weird. Even our parents, our teachers, and our friends, influence us to believe that this is normality. We are influenced to believe this is life, and we will be judged and criticized if we dare do anything different, so we follow it.

By the time we hit the age of 30, then 40, then 50, and then even 60, we are just so unfulfilled and unsatisfied with life, because we spent years doing things we didn't want to do, and in turn, we missed our opportunity to live life how we desired. We reach retirement filled with regret about all those wasted years. All along, we had the power or right to act and think how we want, and yet we were educated, and then influenced, to do what everyone else does, because we didn't want to be viewed as different, unusual, or weird. We had our plans and goals, but in order to achieve them, we would have had to take risks, or make decisions that were unnatural in the eyes of society. We had people give us advice and suggestions, and because these people were quite often our friends or loved ones, we trusted their advice to be what's best for us, when all along, it wasn't what we desired at all. Being influenced and manipulated to believe what others believe, and to have to do what others do, is not a case of freedom. We are living a life by their design, and by society's design, not our own. We are so worried and concerned about what others will think of us, how they will perceive us, and how they will judge us, that we base our beliefs and our decisions around what we believe will best provide us with likeability, respect, and admiration. The truth is, whether we make our own decisions, and adopt our own beliefs, or whether we do what we feel will please others, and believe what others believe, either way people will judge us and gossip about us behind our back. Now many will deny they are influenced and manipulated by others, but for the fact they aren't living a life filled with success, satisfaction, and happiness, would suggest they haven't truthfully followed their own path in life. Freedom is the ability to think with an open mind, and to adopt our own beliefs without the influence of others. Freedom is the ability to act in a manner of being true to ourselves, to be the person we really are, not to be someone crafted by society. Along with our health, our happiness/wellbeing and our goals should be our three biggest priorities in life. If our thoughts, decisions, and actions, aren't working towards achieving success and satisfaction in these three areas, then it's a sign we are being influenced, and we are denying ourselves freedom to live the best life we could be.

Think about what areas of life you are unhappy about, or dissatisfied with, then ask yourself why do you feel that way? The next question is, why aren't you doing anything about finding happiness and satisfaction in those areas? Many people will believe they don't have an option, such as with their job. They can't quit their job to actually find a career they are truly passionate about, because they need the money to survive, or they don't have the time, or it's not a practical option right now. These aren't reasons, they are excuses! We have options, and we have the power to make choices to change, but we choose not to, and we seek refuge in these so called reasons as a way of escaping hard work, and taking risks. We are damn unhappy, but we are comfortable, because it's what we know. Excuses are a form of imprisonment. Freedom is defined as not being in a state of imprisonment or enslavement, but because we are using these excuses not to take risks, not to make changes, not to step out of our comfort zone, and not to apply ourselves to something that requires hard work, we are imprisoning ourselves away from achieving the life we desire. We can look at the other aspect of that definition, where it states freedom as being in "the state of not being subject to, or affected by, something undesirable". If our job is undesirable, and we dislike it or hate it, yet remain working there, we are relinquishing our right to freedom. If we remain in an unhealthy relationship, in which the love is absent, or perhaps our partner is negative minded, or our partner is perhaps violent, or perhaps our partner is being unsupportive, and yet we continue to remain in that relationship, again, we are relinquishing our right to freedom. If we are in continual financial hardship, and yet we don't make any effort to find a higher income generating work option, or we don't make any effort to budget more effectively, or we refuse to make sacrifices, then again, we are relinquishing our right to freedom. Freedom is a choice!

The last two aspects of that definition that I want to focus on today are; "the power of self-determination attributed to the will" and "having unrestricted use of something". Let's replace the words "the will" in the definition to "our goals". For most of us, we have goals that we set ourselves to achieve in life, but do we have that one particular life changing goal, one that would positively transform our life? These such goals take an extreme amount of hard work, commitment, patience, resilience, and perseverance to achieve. Normally, we'd be looking anywhere between 3 to 10 years to achieve such a goal, due to the height of reward at the end of it. There are people who dream about achieving such a goal, and there are people who actually go about achieving such a goal. The truth is, if we want something desperate enough, we would do anything to achieve it, and that emotion is determination. We would be prepared to work hard for it, overcome numerous failures and challenges for it, wait several years to achieve it, even suffer through immense hardship and adversity for it, because we desire our goal so greatly. It drives us to achieve it no matter the cost. Determination and drive are such powerful emotions, because even despite all those adversities, failures, hardships, and sufferings we are prepared to go through, it's these two emotions that provide us with the reasoning behind why we are putting ourselves through all the pain, suffering, and hard work. That goal means the world to us, such is its importance. Freedom is about possessing that mental power and strength, that fuels us to be resilient and patient, whilst we remain determined and driven by our goal along the journey to achievement. That leads me to the "having unrestricted use of something" piece. We have unrestricted use of our minds. There is nothing holding us back in being resilient, patient, perseverant, determined, and driven, other than ourselves. We have an unrestricted ability to use our mind to our advantage, and yet for most of us, we instead use it to our detriment. We have the freedom to use our mind to help us achieve our goals, and the happiness we desire in life. Again though, it comes back to choice. We are in control of how we choose to use our mind, be it proactively to achieve our goals, or whether we use it negatively, leading us to continue living a life of unhappiness and misery. We all have the freedom to live the life we desire, to achieve the goals we yearn for, to achieve the happiness we long for, to achieve the success we would love, and to achieve the satisfaction we crave. Freedom is a choice! Freedom is a blessing handed to you to live a life by your design, not that of others, nor a life of unhappiness. Don't relinquish the freedom you have to live the life you desire!

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