Recognizing the True Meaning of Freedom

Recognizing the True Meaning of Freedom

Freedom for some could mean having no fixed timetable, having unlimited money to buy whatever is desired or living Nthoulany

What Is It To Be A Free Bird?

If you ask anyone about the kind of life do they want to lead, the common response you will always receive is, ‘I want to live like a tree bird!’ But just how many of us are aware of the tact that the ‘free bird’ too, has a purpose in flying ‘freely’ in a particular direction. Also, the ease with which it flies, depends on factors like the proximity of predators, the weather and the familiarity of the place.

What’s thought-provoking ¡s that when we compare our freedom to the free bird, we don’t consider any of these aspects, because freedom as humans understand it, largely pertains to the ability to move or act as desired. But it’s imperative to remember that when we find different ways to what we want in life, we also get to choose different options that could be easy or difficult to follow.

The Notion of Freedom

The idea of freedom takes root when an individual wishes to earn and do things at his/ her expense and carve out an individual identity, independent of the family or one’s peers. However, this thought process often rankles caregivers and increases their woes.

Thus, as family pressure piles on, one tends to rebel to achieve one’s dreams and aspirations. Nevertheless, some give into family pressure as it’s difficult to resist and follow a different path. So they follow their parents’ wishes without realising or identifying their uniqueness.

Adopting The Herd Mentality

Those who follow their families and also their peers’ family members get attuned to their strong influences. They blindly follow their thought process and get on in life by following the herd mentality, living a life not of their choice, but something they were pushed’ into in the promise of it being the best for them.

These lite choices are reflected in situations like being struck in a marriage for life time whether they are compatible with their spouses or not, or being stuck to diets and the weighing scales, or spending the weekends with people they don’t like but are obliged to have lunch with. Thus, there is monotony In each passing day and night.

The Meaning of Freedom

After living a large part of one’s life enslaved to one thing or another, an individual may one day wake up to the meaning of freedom. For some, It could mean having no fixed timetable, having unlimited money to buy whatever is desired, or living without any bondages. However, freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery’ The only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile.

When people from different walks are observed, they seem to be happy with their riches or the power to do things as per their liking and all are busy planning for a tomorrow that has a home, work, family and good health.

But if the meaning of life is family, work, and children, we all need to be asked this question: what happens on the day work ends, children become grown-ups and leave home? When that happens, it is most likely that the relationship between a husband and his wife will become a monotonous live in relationship.

Finding Your Purpose

It isn’t that humans are unhappy all the time. There is fun and appreciation for one’s work to However, every now and then, there is a feeling of deep sadness mixed with fear or guilt and this feeling which is experienced on and oft, cannot be ignored.

So what’s the solution? It is to engage in activities that give you a sense of doing something useful like helping the underprivileged children or lending a hand to old people in despair, because the feeling of serving others is so profound that it heals the soul and provides nutrition to the mind and body, leading to peacefulness in life.

Thus, If you follow your dream with passion and make a commitment to pursue it, you feed your soul with purposefulness. We all have the ability to follow our dream, but we just don’t have the courage to follow our dreams. So perhaps, this is where the sadness comes from. And instead of finding out the root cause of this sadness, we just try to escape from the situation and search for freedom. But freedom from what precisely, remains questionable.

Footnote
By and large, freedom isn’t about the absence of commitments but it ¡s the ability to make a choice and to commit to what Is best for you. The key to completing a task is knowing when to begin and when to stop. Once you comprehend this tact of handling things with detachment, you are free! Free from all expectations, fears, and limitations.

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