Personal freedom

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Freedom

/ˈfriːdəm/

1. The power or right to act, speak, think as one wants

2. The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved

Freedom is a state of being. It is the unique condition of being able to determine the terms of our existence, and the ability to pursue its realisation without fear of undue harm. Undue harm in the sense that it is caused not as a result of the nature of existence, but from the malicious acts of other free-thinking individuals.

It is also necessary that our actions in pursuit of our freedom do not hinder or cause undue harm to others.

The progression and scale of the #EndSARS movement serve to underpin the importance of freedom and how wired we are to fight for it. This fight is one in which we must all partake.

I am reminded of the words of Emma Lazarus - “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

Chew

Paulo Cohelo - The Alchemist

We must, every one of us, seize control of our destiny. We will not all be successful, but we owe it to ourselves to at least try to direct the course of our existence in a way that we find meaningful. We owe it to ourselves to not just be alive but to live fully and completely.

Of course, freedom is not for everyone, just as entrepreneurship is not for everyone. And that is alright. There must be an employee for every employer, a follower for every leader. Everyone cannot achieve equal outcomes. However, we must first attempt to attain it before we decide whether or not we are willing to bear the responsibility of it.

As humans, it is in our nature to have conflicting and even competing wants. The desire to sleep all day and the desire to earn money, for instance, are mutually exclusive in most cases. We are free to choose either, not to do both. Our choices in certain situations can be limited by the desires of other people as well. We cannot eat our cake and have it, neither can we have cake our friend has eaten. There will always be factors that limit the amount of freedom we can exercise at any given point.

If we are to pursue our freedom, we must establish the reason we desire it. The simplest way to ensure our commitment to this quest is to know what we want. When we know this, we can begin to figure out how to acquire it. Desire, however, is a concept of order and reality is born from chaos. To superimpose these conflicting ideas and to reconcile them, we must endure some measure of suffering - as is the case with conflicts. This journey will not be painless.

Paulo Cohelo says in The Alchemist, “when you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you”. When this happens, it is not because some supernatural or metaphysical force is at play, but that when we determine what we want, we open our minds up, and indeed our very selves, to the ways we may acquire it. We begin to see opportunities instead of obstacles.

One problem many of us have is that we do not know how to want effectively. The majority of us will state our desires as general concepts such as wanting money or fame or happiness, but we do not define what these terms mean to us.

The result is that we end up with some warped version of what we desire, leaving us frustrated. People who want money end up spending more than they make in a particular period, the famous are always getting into trouble and repeatedly making bad choices and, the happiest people are usually heavily medicated to suspend their experience of reality.

What then is the proper way to want? How do we align the actions of the universe with our will in order to achieve our true purpose? Cohelo suggests that we listen to our hearts. The heart comes from the soul of the world, and it will one day return to it. We must commune with it because it knows all things. The heart is never silent. It is always speaking to us; about our fears, our passions, and our desires. And although we may pretend not to hear it speak, what it says will live forever inside us.

For Natalie Sisson (in this TED Talk), freedom is the ability to drop everything in the moment to be with the people she loves. However, before reaching this conclusion, Natalie was first an employee - a successful one at that having attained a senior management position - and then a solo entrepreneur working on her passion. Yet none of these seemed to bring her happiness. Natalie did not feel free.

Brian Benson believes that to be free, we must be our true authentic selves. Brian, like Natalie, had a job he was successful at -the family business - along with several other accomplishments to his name, and yet he was not truly happy until he decided to sell it off. Ironically, while waiting for a buyer to begin his new life, he undertook a remarkable journey of self-discovery which led to him discovering his inner author. (Watch his TED Talk here).

That is not to say that you cannot be free while working at a job or as an employee. You will often find, however, that it is impossible to be happy while working towards the goals of another such as a company or an employer. True freedom lies in working towards the goals we set for ourselves. The secret is in finding the best way to align what we want, and what we do.

In my journey to finding personal freedom, after experimenting with several techniques, I have settled on one that has provided tangible results for me. First, I set broad areas in which I want to improve. Then I set tasks or challenges aimed at increasing my competence in that area. Freedom for me is living a life that lets me accomplish the goals I set for myself.

For example, my social skills are lacking. Due in large part to my introverted nature. So I may set myself the challenge of texting an old friend or meeting new people within a timeframe. I have found that over time, these little accomplishments accumulate. I have found myself growing not only more competent at performing my tasks, but also more confident in my execution of them.

Freedom lies in pursuing our purpose. To find it, we must look inwards. Close ourselves to the external world if we must. There are many tools which we may employ in this search. Self-reflection, meditation, mindfulness, yoga are some of the many avenues through which we may discover ourselves and our nature.

A few tips to start your journey

1. Train to your intuition - Intuition, inner voice, heart. They are all the same. To train them you must iterate. The more you learn, the more you experience you gather, the more information your mind unconsciously stores up till certain things feel intuitive. Strong intuition makes finding your purpose easier.

2. Harness the power of now - You must understand that all your problems are rooted in time. Feelings of loss and regret come from a fixation on the past. Fear and nervousness are born from your apprehensions and expectations of the future. The now is all that matters. By existing in the now, we become free.

3. Breathe - Breath is the foundation of life. Whenever you find yourself buckling under the pressures of time or the path to your purpose no longer feels intuitive, remember to stop and breathe. Na who dey alive dey find freedom.

4. #ENDSARS