The Freedom to Choose Freedom
Believing we have to live in cages…or not.
When I first met my partner she asked me why I go deep into nature. Part of my too-long response was that I feel free there.
Then she did what she does best and pushed me on that. As we sit on a beach of the Yukon river watching it course by, she asks me,
“Is freedom real?”
As an American, the idea of freedom has been instilled in me since birth. However, I was never really told what it even means.
Since that day I have been thinking about freedom and what it means.
To my partner, freedom isn’t real. It can’t be real because we are bound by morals and human flaws that make us feel every time we make a decision.
To me, freedom lies within that ability to make the decision in the first place. We have consequences, positive or negative, that follow every decision we make. More often than not, we know what those consequences will be when we choose to act.
We have the freedom to make choices. In those choices is the boundary we will then be setting upon ourselves with that choice.
For example:
I am an alcoholic. I can choose to drink, and I can choose to not drink. Every day I actively choose not to drink.
This choice sets a limitation on the way I socialize, how I relax, and sometimes even what movies I can watch. Making the choice to drink however sets limitations to my happiness, sends me into a spiraling depression, and tears away meaningful relationships.
It doesn’t seem like much of a choice. Or at least not a difficult one. Difficult or not, I still have the freedom to choose.
Just like this, we can choose to believe in freedom.
We can choose to think we are bound by the world around us and feel like the world is closing in on us, restricting us from doing what we want.
Or, we can decide we want to make choices that set boundaries we are okay with and believe in Freedom.
