How to find FREEDOM by self-determination.
By choosing my responsibilities and values I am free in regard to that within my control.
I’m soon to be at a place where I accept that I have chosen most of the responsibilities in my life and found myself on a journey in the pursuit of freedom. This might sound simple, but take a second and think about what “choice and responsibility” actually mean. Let me explain.
The logic.
One might call it an accident if one goes out in traffic and gets hurt, but I would be so bold to call it one’s choice. I’m smart enough to understand the risks of going into traffic. I know that even how good a driver I might think I am, there are others out there. I know I can’t be sure not to get in an accident. So at that moment, I make a choice, even how subconsciously. The potential outcome is expected and accepted, and the choice has been made. Most people at that moment I think would prefer to blame someone or something else than themselves and I understand why, taking full responsibility for one’s choices is hard, it’s a big ask.
If we use that logic and think about one’s responsibilities in life, for example, family is something many people say they can’t choose. They are perceived to be in one’s box of responsibilities whether one wants them to be or not. But that’s not quite accurate, you could choose not to be with them, choose not to expose yourself to the insecurity of others in “traffic”. (In this case, a question of accepting the risks of exposing one to the vulnerability of caring for others). Family is chosen not given, even in the question regarding blood. Among those I call family, not all are blood relatives yet all blood relatives are not ones I call family. They are in your chosen box of responsibilities. Even if you realize it or not. We are social creatures by evolution and we are prone to care for social norms and we should, but one can still choose with whom one socializes.
Another example would be the one who is discontent over their job and often fails to see how it’s their choice to leave. One often considers the situation impossible due to chosen responsibilities such as providing for one’s family or in order to fulfill, by my values, a less valuable pursuit such as a choice of a luxurious lifestyle where one might choose unwanted responsibility in order to obtain luxury. Or simply due to unwillingness to make a choice in fear of its consequence, knowing the consequence is one’s alone.
I believe one should choose to take responsibility for their lot in life and make choices even if they are considered hard or unsafe (maybe ever more so just because they are hard and unsafe?), trusting in one’s ability to prosper. But somehow many choose a life as the mindless victim, ignorant of their responsibility in choice. Accepting others as the driver of one’s life. The world is the owner of one’s misery. In their mind, free from blame and deserving of reward without effort. Accepting the role of victim in the most comfortable world.
I have reevaluated my life over the past years.
While doing so, question everything at least once. Defining my values and morals, as one day I realized that I had yet not defined my own. They were some kind of values created mostly by my upbringing and environment. Values that are dependent on the beliefs of others. I hadn’t done what Immanuel Kant so elegantly explained when asked what the enlightenment was;
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage” — Immanuel Kant.
What Kant is talking about is roughly the idea that humans tend to outsource their thinking to others, their morals to the priest, their actions to their upbringing, and so on (1). In effect, outsourcing the ability to choose by choosing not to choose. This emergence from my self-imposed immaturity was a wake-up call followed by several years of thinking, and defining who I am. In this process I found myself feeling lighter, in touch with some kind of freedom slowly emerging from within. An understanding that I own the responsibility for my choices within my control. And as I wrote in the beginning, I’m now at a point in my life where I am close to having chosen most of the responsibilities in my life and defined most of my values.
How does this make me free?
There are a lot of definitions of freedom. Hobbes would say that freedom is to do whatever one would want to do no matter the consequence (2). Rosseau would say that humans could be free within the state even under coercion as long as the sovereign ruling is defined by the general will of the people (3). Some would say causality and the laws of nature make us slaves to her will, with no action as considered one’s own, never free.
I would define mine by the word “self-determination”. As long as I actively choose my responsibilities and values I am free in regard to that within my control. Spinoza talks about absolute freedom as something only obtained by god since it would be considered fully self-determined (4). I would say that in a human’s quest for freedom she would be able to reach some level of freedom by doing the same.
Back to my life.
I find myself in a place of self-determination, I have chosen most of my responsibilities and I have defined most of my values. In my case this meant reinventing myself, moving 434 miles, and closing down two companies. And now, instead of spending my days with 12–14 hour work in the pursuit of money and status. I’m now spending most of my time with family, friends, and philosophy. In the pursuit of meaning.
What now?
I find myself in this “once in a lifetime” feeling of freedom where I have the time I need to choose whatever I want to do and the mindset to determine who I am. It’s an inspiring thought, even if overwhelming at times. To take full responsibility for everything in your life, your success as well as your failures. It’s not for everyone.
But in the end, it leaves me with something more. An understanding of what makes me, me. What makes me feel true joy? What makes me feel injustice? What qualities do I value in others? What values I would defend?
My idea of virtue is defined.
Sources:
1: What is Enlightenment?, Immanuel Kant
2: Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
3: The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
4: Ethics, Baruch Spinoza
