FREEDOM! DO YOU HAVE THE COURAGE FOR IT?

I just watched 300 again, both the 2006 and the 2014 movies, one yesterday and the second today. I had watched the movies before years back, but I got more understanding from them yesterday and today than I did in earlier times. The historical events of the Greek against Persians had a single idea for which the Greek were ready to give their lives, freedom. They would rather die as free men than live as slaves. At the beginning where Leonaidas of Sparta resisted Xerxes for more than three days at the Hot Gates, the decision to do so was made when he considered his identity simply as a free man. Not as a king, not as a husband, not as a father. But as a free man. This was his wife’s words to him, that he should choose if to resist Xerxes or to listen to the words of the Oracles only as a free man. At the same time, I was reading Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live. An amazing book on the Will to Fail, the Victims of Failure and the escape you can make from the Will to Fail in your early life. It is striking how that an average person never lives a free life, never live the truth of their dreams and goals in life. The two complement in a unique way. I recommend you watch 300 and read Wake Up And Live with a studious heart.

Now, if I asked you this question, ‘How are you?’ You would be prompt to say, ‘I am fine.’ And that would be right. Of course, the truth is that you do not feel ‘living’. I mean, you know you are a human, but not really what that means. Once responding, I am fine, no matter the level you might think you are in life, there is something about your consciousness that is not operating at potential, ideal or success rate. This is not a stereotype; it is the point of truth. I have been there myself. You’re reading about freedom, I know. You probably just stumbled on this. And you might answer, I am fine, to how-are-you question. Now, you wonder what ‘How are you?’ has to do with freedom. Everything, at least beginning with that how you answer the question shows your freedom of thinking. If we act the way we think, we must be free in thinking before we can be free in action. Let me ask simple, good, sincere questions of welfare then.

Are you happy? Are you free?

Are you truly free? Are you really happy?

Are you great?

Really, are you free? Truly, are you great? Sincerely, are you happy?

Process the questions one more time. Don’t just answer the ‘yes’ thing by default. It is not an examination that I am going to mark. It is test of your life’s efficiency. For goodness sake, your sincerity does not embarrass anyone; it relieves you.

We all want freedom for our lives. The commonest place where the thirst for freedom is openly declared is in financial terms. Since it is easiest to blame our inability to do things upon the lack of money, you find the struggle to be financially independent to be the most motivating factor of anyone. Freedom, independence is at the heart of how we want to live our lives.

Strange however is that nearly everyone you meet on the street is not free, not living a free life. Some think they are free, but they are not. They are not being who they want to be nor doing what they want to do.

Pick that one thing which if you are free, you are going to be doing differently. Let that define a personal idea and ideal of freedom to you. When you are free, what do you get? What happens to you or what do you experience in your life? Either from within you or the impression you give by living life in freedom.

The opposite of freedom, we know, is slavery. Most people are slaves, living like one but never knowing. In fact, the average person is a slave to that which they think they are free from. I shall buttress this point:

Humans by the time we are teenagers think that we are not free, that our rights to do things are being trampled upon and we are stopped from being who we want to be. We pretend to serve and expect that the days come when we shall not be under our parents or guardians who accusedly have kept us bound. The days come when we depart for college or in a way have some degree of financial capacity to cater for certain of our needs. Then, we think that we are free. But, in fact, this is another bondage entirely.

Let us pick a case. A person feels their parents stop them from living the kind of lifestyle they want to live. The true problem being they don’t know the kind of lifestyle they want to live, that is they are indecisive about it. Moving from there, they suppose it is their parents or the society about them that is stopping them from living as they want to. Thus, when they are free from their parents, they adopt the lifestyle which they have been restricted against ‘in rebel’ of the lifestyle that they have been restricted to. It is the same prison, just the second room adjacent the bars.

The notion of the life you want to live has to have nothing to do with the standards you think others expect of you, either in harmony with those standards or in disharmony with them. That life is comparative regardless of what side of the standards you take; the living is slavery. The prison is just there, on the flip side of the coin, but it is the same coin. And that is all necessary for forsaking a life of true freedom.

I cherish the words of Bill Gove preserved by Bob Proctor, ‘If I want to be free, I got to be me. If I want to be free, I got to be me. Not the me I think you think I should be. Not the me I think she thinks I should be. Not the me I think they think I should be. If I want to be free, I got to be me. And I got to know who me is.’

Having learned that true freedom has nothing to do with the standards of other people, we must clearly understand that it has everything to do with decision.

We are free when we live the live we choose to live. That is, decision unlocks freedom.

Our freedom comes in being aware of who we are. Freedom is unlocked by the key of truth turned on the hinge of decision.

‘Ye shall know the truth; and the truth shall set you free.’

If you really want freedom, you must find out the truth, for the truth sets free. Truth about what?

Truth about a subject that encompasses all subjects, that is most ignored and that must be attended to. Truth about You.

In your search for you, you may find truth about your capacities, potentials, purpose, responsibilities, desires, relationships, society, origin and destination. Too much to ask for? How badly do you want freedom? Are you happy without it?

Yet, it is not too much at all. It is rather straightforward. Truth is not perspectives. It is not like the notions of the world that we carry around which shift from different angles. Truth is not ways to a city. Truth is the city itself, and different ways lead to it the same.

Truth about one of those things lead you to truth about many simultaneously, if not all. But you must become aware of the truths of all.

Nor is it a complex thing to do, although at first it goes against the habit of slavery. But while your present habits are not necessarily formed in you by your design and decision, your future habits are made by your actions and inactions through your will today. The question thus is:

If you want freedom, do you have the courage to make the decision and carry it?

Yes.

No.

Each man must answer for himself.

This is an extension of the OVERFLOW OF ENGRAFT, which started in October 2020. This extension, 365 Days of ENGRAFT, is one of the personal development release for ENGRAFT SOCIETY, designed to bring every person to the awareness of Success and Happiness in their lives. I invite you to join ENGRAFT SOCIETY today. Get a copy of ENGRAFT for our free invitation to ENGRAFT SOCIETY, become a part of our personal and team development programs and bring yourself to new levels of success beyond your wildest expectations.

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