Steps of Inner Freedom in Action
Responding instead of reacting with 4 of your powerful endowments
Suppose you went to a restaurant with a colleague and ordered a plate of onion rings to share, but before you had any, the colleague ate it all. You thought, “So inconsiderate!” How would you respond to this situation? Will you call them out or pretend that nothing happened?
Imagine a similar situation where the person who ate all the onion rings is not a colleague but your spouse. This time, do you call them out or pretend that nothing happened?
React vs. Respond
It doesn’t matter which actions you choose for the scenarios. Those are totally up to you. What’s intriguing to me is the time spent making each decision. Do you think twice and even evaluate what your colleague might think before you respond? On the other hand, do you react to your spouse without thinking through?
If you are like me, I suffer a lot from this blindness. The closer a person is to me, I tend to spend less effort taking their emotional needs into account. I might speak directly off my head and say, “You are so inconsiderate. I wanted some onion rings.” My reaction to a family member or a close friend is often quicker and blunter. You might say that’s what true friends do, and it might not be a problem to a certain extent. But when overdoing this to the point of rudeness, you will start to lose those who care about you.
While being authentic is important, that doesn’t mean you need to react to every situation by instinct. Your instinct is, in a sense, your surface personality that is conditioned by your experience in the past. Reacting takes no energy and is comfortable. I get it. But if you react to every situation in this way, you literally become a prisoner of the past. Is that really what you want?
You can usually get along with many colleagues, but not every colleague can become your spouse because when they’re not as close, you treat them with respect, and you allow yourself to respond instead of reacting. That’s why not every person can be your spouse and stand living with you 24/7. Isn’t it so?
How do you escape this invisible chain that ties you to your past? A great way is to learn about the tools that can free yourself. The good news is, you have always had them.
The Four Human Endowments
Our ability to choose between a stimulus and our response is the greatest power of man. This power stands on four fundamental endowments that every single one of us has —
- Self-awareness
- Imagination
- Conscience
- Independent-Will
How does each endowment play out in our story?
1. Self-awareness
You cannot fight the battle you cannot see.
When you find out your onion rings are gone, your experience and your ego tell you, “Gosh, I am offended.” If you are unaware that you have such a thought and proceed with the reaction chain, you might very well slap the other person in the face first. But when you cultivate self-awareness, you take a little more time to experience that you have anger, and you feel unfair. You know that your emotion and thought do not define you, so you can pause and move to the next step.
2. Imagination
You cannot choose what you cannot imagine.
You might still consider yelling at the other person or slapping them, but your imagination doesn’t stop there. You can also imagine telling them calmly that you are disappointed, joking about it, or avoiding thinking about it. This might happen in a split second, but you can consider many possible scenarios. This very powerful future planning ability is also uniquely human.
3. Conscience
You cannot enjoy true and lasting happiness by breaking the natural laws that govern human interactions.
Conscience is where you find principles for life. Deep down, you know if you make this other person look bad in any way by calling them out, your relationship might start to crumble. You feel the conscience to be forgiving and understanding but also the urge to “make things right.” Be careful not to mix up your conscience with what any religion or culture asks you to follow. You must experiment and experience how those principles can benefit you and why they are the natural laws of life.
4. Independent-will
You cannot choose what’s best for you if you have chosen to be the prisoner of the past.
Even if you know forgiving is the right path, you might think about, “Hey, I can’t let others see I can be easily taken advantage of.” or, “I’ve never done that kind of talk where I share my feelings and be vulnerable. That’s not me.” Throwing those noises away and focusing on the result you want is where you find the independent will. Your choice is now irrelevant to your past or what others think.
With the four endowments, you have the freedom to choose your response. You are self-aware, creative, conscientious, and independent. You’ve gained extra time and space in between a stimulus and your response. You’ve broken the cycle of reactions.
But does that mean happy ever after?
Strive to approach the impossible
If you read my last article about self-awareness, you know how hard it is to be even a 5% conscious being. And by definition, there is no upper limit of imagination. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be called imagination. Moreover, is it possible to be always conscientious 100% of the time? Can you be sure that you will always choose to act on your own behalf and not be influenced by others?
Impeccable choice doesn’t exist.
It’s not about being perfect, but having the courage to set the goals to improve in all these areas. The freedom to choose is the freedom within you.
Walking down the path of cultivating the inner freedom within you is the goal.
Break your loop now
How will you summarize for the “freedom to choose”? Something like this?
Freedom to Choose =
Self-awareness x Imagination x Conscience x Independent-Will
I encourage you to think of something that often bothers you. Do you have one? Now pretend you reencounter the same situation. Your instinct kick in, and your emotion arises. But this time, you have the tools and the time to think. Go through each step and utilize your 4 powerful endowments to find new possibilities for yourself. Good luck!
Content inspired by The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
