Are You Choosing Freedom? (Or Have You Let Them Steal It?)

This past month, the topic of freedom has come up many times.

My wife Perla saw a sign for a small dog that was lost, and I told her maybe he wasn’t lost. Maybe he had found freedom.

I imagined that dog having the time of his life out in the open, exploring the world without any leash or restraints. Many of us would rush to be concerned or protective of a small dog like this without its owner, but perhaps he will experience some new joys, learn something new, and make new friends.

Who are we to take this dog’s freedom?

The next day, I saw a YouTube episode of Eyes Wide Open (Tip: bookmark this video and check it out later), and my friend Jay was asked what the best part of being homeless was. (He used to be homeless.)

Jay answered that the best part of being homeless was freedom.

Essentially, he was free not to have to go along with someone else’s way of doing things. He was free not to always have to be connected with others. Perhaps there was more solitude, but that could also be a freeing experience.

It’s a powerful thing to realize we all have freedom if we’re willing to take it.

It’s also a powerful thing to realize that while society may sometimes feel sorry for a homeless person, even someone with few possessions has the freedom to choose their actions.

In a prior post, I said: “Every moment of every day gives you the opportunity to change it all around.” Know that we have tremendous power to choose the direction of our own lives. That is our personal freedom.

When we find ourselves lacking freedom, often we gave it up (or we let them steal it). We are responsible for the level of freedom we have in our lives.

So there is freedom of action. But what about the freedom to think what you wish to think?

When I was younger, I sometimes spent long periods alone, and while it could be lonely, those experiences helped me learn to think more freely. I could search for the best, most worthy thoughts, not being concerned if someone else approved or if they agreed with me.

Yet, the potential downside to that mental freedom is that I could head in bad or less worthy directions, and perhaps no one was there to correct me.

There is such a thing as being free to head down the wrong paths. But then again, that is part of the experience most of us go through as adults. We are given the freedom to make mistakes, to learn a lesson or not learn it, to be considerate or not. We even have the freedom to value and pursue freedom, or to seek comfort, protection, and stability.

And despite that many of us are scared to make mistakes (I used to have that aching fear), there is great value in heading down the wrong path, realizing this, then fixing this for yourself.

The freedom to make mistakes is a valuable one we all have.

Personally, I like freedom and open options, and I also like stability and comfort (for example, a home, marriage, steady income, etc.). They’re not always contradictory. I can pursue more freedom and options in areas where I want to grow in life, and I can be fine with stability and comfort in areas where I feel good with what I have.

The topic of freedom also came up in other ways, recently. It’s been a recurring theme…

After hearing about the missing dog, and Jay’s response that freedom was the best thing about being homeless, I overheard someone’s conversation about freedom at an electronics store.

Yes, even strangers around me were spontaneously bringing up freedom…

A client came in to look for a phone to buy, and he mentioned that he had broken his phone five days ago. The associate was surprised and said that he knew a lot of people who couldn’t last 24 hours without a phone.

The client said:

“At first, I was upset that my phone broke. But then I realized that without my phone, I didn’t have to answer to anybody. No one could get a hold of me or tell me what to do, and I was relieved. It was a freeing experience.”

This man was animated, glowing, and appeared to have had a personal revelation that he wanted to share, as he spoke quite loudly, and I could hear him even though I was a few aisles away.

I want you to realize that we allow everything in our lives to take a bit of our freedom. It’s not the phone that has the inner power to take our freedom, we are the ones who allow a phone or any object to restrict our options.

Let’s take a minute to explore a question. What are some things that can suck away our freedom? (If we allow them to):

Phones

How many people do you know who when they get a text, they must look at it immediately? Or they start scrolling through social media, and they lose track of time, not accomplishing what they actually wanted to do. (A song I’ve been listening to lately is actually called Doomscroller, by the band Metric.)

Email

Often, people send us emails, and we allow this to dictate our days rather than planning out what was important to us. Sure, one or two emails shouldn’t make much difference, but many professionals receive dozens of emails in a day.

Obligations

How many tasks come up that you feel obligated to do rather than truly wanting to do them? Are you allowing them to take your freedom from you, even if you sometimes find them mindless or unimportant?

Wanting to Be Liked

I suppose it’s normal to want others to like us. We are social animals, after all. But when we want to be liked so much that we only do things hoping people will want our friendship, or perceive us in a certain way, then we lose a piece of our freedom too.

None of these things in themselves are truly bad. Most people engage with all of these to some extent. I don’t believe the “solution” is to remove all of them from your life.

My personal solution to help regain my freedom from my phone is I don’t answer unknown numbers, and I happily mute it if I’m busy with something. Also, most pings and updates are shut off.

With email, I often struggle, as I like to get back to people as soon as I can, but I usually receive dozens of emails in a day. While I respond to them eventually, I don’t obligate myself to respond immediately. In fact, to avoid getting distracted with my main goals for the day, I batch respond to most emails on Fridays (unless they’re urgent and important). And though I’ve often kept my email tab open all day, lately I avoid doing that, to keep my focus on my priorities for the day.

As far as obligations, it has been an ongoing practice for me to avoid feeling obligated to almost anything. Very few actions are truly necessary. But often, someone asks me for a favor and I agree to it. Then of course, I will feel obligated, though not necessarily in a bad way. I have learned to be much more careful about agreeing to do things. I only agree if I am confident that I am enthusiastic to help and I have the time available. If things happen to change and I am no longer enthusiastic or I no longer have the time though, I am at peace with changing plans.

Of course, most of the types of “obligations” I would get involved in are not matters of life and death.  

I also choose my words carefully. I avoid making promises, and rather I might say “I’m happy to help with this when I have time.”

What about “wanting to be liked.” How do I handle that?

When I was younger, I often did worry if people liked me or not. But in time, I’ve learned that it’s more important to live life on my terms. I’m not interested in living a life where I make decisions based on whether others agree or like them. I’m the one living this life and dealing with my actions and their outcomes, not others.

Though of course, most of us want to be liked. The healthy approach to being likable is to be kind, helpful, loving, and also authentic.

It's normal to want to be liked, but if you make one misstep and someone no longer wants to be your friend, perhaps that’s alright. Do you need a friend who is ready to leave you when you make a simple mistake?

Understand this: We all have immense power to act freely, but we tend to give up that power to objects or other people. When you feel compelled to do something, lacking alternatives, that moment is when you are losing your freedom.

When you think “I should,” is that really something you should do, or is it just a thoughtless habit you have fallen into? Perhaps someone guilted you into thinking you should do something. Often, when I hear “I should” in my mind, I realize that there is a societal belief system at work. The thought that “I should” is coming more from societal expectations than from my true self.

As an example, consider if a friend is moving and he wants your help. He calls you the day he is moving to request that you help him out. But you already have your own plans for the day, and you do not have time to help.

Your friend is adamant – he needs help now. “If you do not help a friend in need, what kind of friend are you,” he says.

The societal voice in your head starts to say: “I should help him move if I am a good friend.”

But the truth is you have the right to plan your life, prioritize what is important to you, and decline to help anyone for any reason. Are you going to allow something that pops in front of you to control your life, or are you going to choose freedom? (Of course, you are free to choose to do what pops in front of you if that is your conscious choice.)

Maybe you want to be an excellent friend (or sibling, spouse, etc.), and that is fine, but does being a great friend mean that you always do what your friends want?

Are you here to please everyone around you, and disregard your own needs, wants, and feelings? Then, where is your freedom?

The above situation with a friend actually did happen to me. I had other priorities, so I did not end up helping him move (though I helped him move on other occasions).

Later, the same friend called me up again. We were 20 years old at the time.

He said: “Hey, I’m in jail. I was driving with an expired license, and I need you to bail me out for $500. I’m sure you’re good for it. I can’t have my parents finding out about this, so just bail me out, and I’ll pay you right back… Otherwise, I might end up spending a couple of nights here.”

I wasn’t comfortable with giving him $500 when I knew, more likely than not, I’d never see the money again.

I also wasn’t happy to see that as a 20-year-old adult, he was scared of his parents finding out about his poor life choices. I wanted him to own his poor life decisions and actually learn something.

His spending a few nights in jail seemed like it might just be the medicine he needed to start getting his life together. So I exercised my freedom and told him I wasn’t going to bail him out.

A last, important kind of freedom I want to discuss is the freedom to truly be yourself. If you place too much importance on who others think you are, who they expect you to be, or who they wish you to be, then this can restrict your freedom.

Perhaps others expect you to follow a specific career path. They say you’re good at science, so you should be a doctor. While it’s good to keep in mind your strengths, ultimately you are the one who has the power to decide what you do with your life. Don’t allow others’ perceptions or expectations of you to dictate your life.

Or perhaps you are especially quiet, and people expect you to be shy, timid, and a pushover. That’s fine. You can still be socially engaging, start conversations, or even tell jokes if you wish. Their expectations based on how you’ve behaved in the past do not restrict your freedom.

What if you’re often right about everything, and you feel tremendous pressure to continue to get everything right, and not make mistakes? If that’s the case, again, learn to release yourself from the expectations of other people. Even if you are usually right, everyone can make mistakes, and that is fine as long as you make an effort to learn from them.

I wonder if you will choose your freedom today. The options your life path can go on are limitless. But many things in this life keep us tied down. Most of the restrictions in our lives are ones that we have allowed to keep us limited. So if we are the ones who choose to engage with them, we can also choose to let them go or at least stop them from stealing our freedom. Ultimately, we can regain our personal power to be free.

Stop letting people, things, and even beliefs or ideas rob you of your personal freedom and options.

Choose to be free. And for any constraints or restrictions of your life, make sure they are truly worthy.

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The World No Longer Surprises Me

When you see what is happening in this world for what it actually is, it is difficult to be surprised.

Look at nature, and animals often do unpredictable things. We call them wild animals. Those unpredictable actions help them to stay alive. We are animals too, perhaps with more patterned ways of behaving, but we can still be unpredictable. It seems that if unpredictability is useful for survival in some ways, then expecting that unpredictability from others and our environment is also advantageous.

As they say, expect the unexpected.

Sometimes I wonder why anyone would ever be surprised.

Understand that because something appears in a certain way does not mean it is that way. Because one event has transpired the same way twenty times in the past does not mean it will happen that way in the future. Because someone treats you as a friend does not necessarily mean that his intentions are pure. Also, having experienced long spans of prosperity or failure does not mean the same will continue.

Consider that the most horrific event of your life could have a tremendously positive outcome that no one could have foreseen. And also, the greatest triumph of your life could have unexpected terrible consequences.

In light of the above observations, I am no longer surprised by what I see. The shock of seeing the depths of the ills can only go so long until it becomes nothing new.

If you have seen the world, you cease to be surprised by the tremendous ills that happen, which have no good reason or purpose but just happen and cause pain and destruction. Particularly, I mean the ills that we humans have created for ourselves and others in our lives.

Given enough time, the things we thought would not happen, or could not happen, will tend to occur. Just wait and see. (This reminds me of Murphy’s Law).

Consider: Would a cat’s head look at its tail and be surprised by how this part of itself is entirely different from the rest? Similarly, would one human be surprised at another just because they may not conform to each other in any way?

Many of us are not surprised when shocking events happen elsewhere, in another country, where the people have different laws and customs. But when it happens in our backyard, we are surprised. We don’t expect it to happen to us.

We may be jaded at the bad that happens to others, losing the space in our hearts to care, but we still feel unjustly wronged when it happens to us. And then, of course, we will feel more wronged if we realize that people don’t care about our misfortunes and troubles.

And I wonder if we should allow ourselves to feel the pain more acutely that is in the world, or at least the pain in those closest to us. Feel what it is doing to them and their lives and to you by being connected to that life. Don’t feel it so deeply that you can’t handle it and don’t know how to manage it. Rather, feel it enough so that you know you have felt it, and do what you are called to do because of that pain. Then allow that feeling to pass and move on with your life.

It is when we ignore the pain of the world and the people around us that we are truly shocked when that pain finally hits home. But if we have gained some practice in feeling that pain along the way, we can better manage it when it is our turn. We will feel peace knowing we did what we could to process, understand, and perhaps heal some pain.

Do not get stuck in the pain and dwell on it, but do feel it and use it as a way to better understand the human experience.

There are different ways to know pain. You may feel the pain as an insider, as someone experiencing it, knowing it, and needing to deal with the reality of it. Or you may not truly feel the pain as an outsider, as someone hearing a story about an event, perhaps reading statistics rather than feeling the experience. We can know the pain intellectually, or we can know it in our hearts.

We should sometimes dare to feel the pain as an insider, to truly feel it. Then we won’t be as jaded, and we will see that we can do something to help others who are in true pain, and we are not helpless and innocent bystanders to it. We are connected to it somehow.

Their pain can be shared with us, which may somehow lighten the load and deepen our human experience.

There will always be events that shock the world. This is simply the reality.

But keep in mind that a surprising negative event, when it happens anywhere in the world, can always be met by an equally surprising force for good.

When you are called upon, will you be there?

The most wonderful surprise will be when we surprise ourselves with an overflowing good that we had not allowed to come out before.

As I have stated, the world itself will cease to surprise one who has understood what it is.

But do not rule out the possibility of surprising yourself. That may be in the form of joyful spontaneity, or it may be in the form of doing good in the face of terrible darkness. This ability to always surprise oneself is a part of our life’s force, what it means to be alive.

Take Ownership Over Your Life

Know that whatever situation you are in, you played a crucial role in getting yourself there.

There is no other way. You are you. Who else got you to the here and now?

In your life’s path…

Whether there were major setbacks that you regretted or not,

Whether you learned and changed and grew from those or not,

Whether you listened to the good advice that came your way or not,

And whether you listened to the bad advice that came your way or not.

Either way, the common denominator was YOU,

You were the one who chose whether to act in a certain way or not,

Whether to believe in something or not,

Whether to follow someone or not,

Whether to be proactive or reactive,

Whether to seek betterment or not,

Whether to seek praise, riches, comfort, love, or safety,

Whether to be truthful or not.

What we often failed to realize in life was that…

We chose to continue along a path,

Or to get off of it and pave a new one,

Or to let others take us on whatever road they had in mind for us,

Either way, we chose this for ourselves.

We had the power to choose or to give up this power to someone else.

We are happy to take the praise when things work out,

But quick to blame others when they don’t,

Rather, we must own it all, as both good and bad will tend to pour out from our decisions.

There is no sense in blaming those who advised you, as they could not know the full extent of who you are and your life’s situation.

And in the end, you made your own decision.

Also, you chose your advisors - did you choose them well?

You would be happy to reap the rewards for yourself, so take any negative consequence, own it, and aim to make it right.

In owning what has gone wrong, you can begin to see through it, regain your power, and find a better path.

Many of us assume that power means power over others,

But the one with power over their own life is quite rare,

True power is to realize every moment of the day that we have the option,

To focus on what we can or can’t do,

To stay or go,

To fight or flee,

To argue or accept,

To act or reflect,

To take action based on need or want,

To speak or listen,

To lead or follow,

To love or hate,

To focus on what limits us, or what frees us.

To pursue or to be content.

We all have this power.

Of course, what is right for you will depend on your circumstance, experience, and goals.

If we are at the whims of people, emotions, and impulsiveness, then we have relinquished our power.

This is a power we always had and that we may have chosen to give away.

In such a case, we can prepare to regain it.

Regardless of what is going on in the world around us, we have power,

The power to think, learn, grow, change, and make the best choices for ourselves.

Take ownership over your life,

Own the situations that you find yourself in,

For you have played a role in creating them,

Own the good and bad that come from your life’s choices,

Seek to help and be helped by others but at the end of the day,

Take ownership over your life,

Your thoughts, actions, beliefs, and desires,

To do otherwise is a denial of what is.

Remember this:

You are the instrument and player,

The song and singer,

The pilot and passenger,

The thought, and thinker,

The being and spirit,

The writer and written,

The gift and giver.