WHY YOU NEVER EVER WANT TO BE FREE...
December 8, 2019
WHY YOU NEVER EVER WANT TO BE FREE….
“Ask not that events happen as you wish them, but let your wish be that events should happen as they will. Then you shall have peace.”
Epictetus: The Enchiridion
I read a line recently, written in the context of careers and life choices. It went something like “...I want the freedom to have and do what I want, when I want it”
Does that sound like a description of “freedom” to you?
It struck me that the author didn’t actually want “Freedom”. What they were describing, in the context of our 21st Century lifestyles, was power. What the author actually desired, was the power to design their own imprisonment.
What even is freedom? Freedom from what? From our jobs and their necessary place in our lives? Expectations of others? The expectation to perform? Succeed?
Freedom is available to us all. But freedom isn’t a comfortable scenario. We want to believe we are free. That we have choice. Control of our lives. We believe we choose things and we can be anything we want to be.
Can we? Are you free? Yes you could leave your job. But wouldn’t you need to get another one? Maybe your partner or your investments would provide for you. But then, wouldn’t you be a prisoner to your relationship or the stock market?
Freedom to me is summed up in one word: Uncertainty. To know what tomorrow will bring, is a prison built on our needs to feel safe. To feel safe is to feel certain. If you can be certain of what will come in the week ahead, you may feel in control, but to me you are not free.
Freedom, is to have no idea what will come next. To have within you a determination to be at peace with what is, undistracted by the acquisition of possessions or the performance of duty. The free amongst us walk any path without anxiety about what lies ahead. They accept, gladly, that tomorrow may be spent in bed, or at war and they will embrace either with a sense of acceptance and gratitude. This is freedom.
Most of us are in prison. The difference between the happy prisoner and the disgruntled one, is only a question of who designed the interior of their cell.
