Why Freedom is More Than What We Think

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The general idea of freedom for us is to be free. Free as in independent, able to make our decisions, and most importantly, the right to do what we want. Even though we know that freedom is vital for us, we frequently fail to evaluate it. Let me explain.

The concept of being self-sufficient may or may not include financial stability, but society has made it an inseparable part of self-sufficiency. So we are actually sort of diverted into thinking that we always need to have a job and somehow keep earning to survive. While it may be true, the effects that these thoughts have on us are excruciatingly overwhelming. So, firstly, we should not confuse financial stability with freedom. Or else we always possess the risk of being absorbed into a loop of delusion that drives us crazy whenever we think about taking a break from work. It just destroys the whole life-work balance and makes the term sound like a joke. While being free means going on holidays sometimes without worrying about losing money, it should also mean living with peace of mind without constantly having to think about earning more money. It’s just a fact that people focus less upon because once it is set up in our mind that we are bound to work a 9 to 5 job every day, waiting for the weekend to come, it’s the weekend that matters more than the week.

Next up, is the confusing theory that we are selling out our freedom every now and then for something that’s entirely not worth it. But this is done involuntarily, though it can be controlled and should be controlled for the sake of our liberty and emancipation. Imagine the times we tried doing things that we don’t even like in the first place, just because either we were bored or influenced by someone else. Trying new things opens up the door to opportunities that we never know may exist for us. But it shouldn’t come at the price of our freedom. Life is literally too short to try out everything. And sometimes we are just deliberately wasting our valuable time doing things that we don’t like, just to regret it later, perhaps lying down on a hospital bed when our time would be almost over. Again, some rituals and social norms have become so substantially burdensome that it makes our thinking compact. We are programmed into doing things like getting a degree and spending half of our lives studying things we don’t find interesting. But that is just one example, and I’m sure we can find many similar matters in our lives that don’t really have much of an impact; still, we do it anyway.

Photo by Fredrik Öhlander on Unsplash

I’d like to mention another human nature of not properly valuing something until we lose it. A lot of relationships are broken up due to the lack of attention from their partner, which ends up leaving the partner in guilt. The good news is, sometimes a little sorry can mend relationships. But it’s not so easy for the other things in life. Not using time properly is one of the leading causes of failure in life. Procrastinating, or as some say it, wasting time on unnecessary things without focusing on what really matters, is seen as the culprit. But this is just another form of forcing captivity by not letting us do what we think truly matters to us. There is a reason there are things like DNR and the first amendment to the US constitution. And honestly speaking, I believe procrastination is just a word that is given by the people who strictly oppose the growth of creative freedom.

Other than imprisonment, certain jobs can sometimes also make people feel that their freedom has been taken away forever. But people somehow get adjusted to their lifestyle, and what only remains is grief that they ever signed up for it. Of course, if there is an easy way out, they are tempted to take it, but sometimes there are consequences too profound. And if I’m to be more pragmatic, only people who already lost their freedom and realized that they lost it and cannot easily regain it — really understand what freedom means.

No one is immortal, and in that sense, no one is ever truly free.

However, it should actually add more meaning to our freedom every time we are breathing. Despite what we should assumably conclude this topic with, the wiser people have advised to give up a little bit of freedom for more and better freedom in the future — whether or not to go that way is your choice to make.