Not everyone chooses freedom.
It takes work to do so, and some prefer, instead, to let others do it for them.
What work is that?
The work of finding out what it is we want.
There’s a strong connection between doing what we want and personal freedom.
We can be employees of a company or a governmental agency and do as the higher ups tell us to do, but unless the given tasks are in alignment with our talents, then our time is not efficiently utilized.
Our morale will suffer.
At the core of freedom is choice. Step by step, choice leads us to what it is we want to do with our lives.
It is a journey into our essence.
Such journey may be short or long, requiring x or y resources. And it may take time.
So we may have to do things just to pay the bills as we move along in our quest.
But search we must if we want to be free.
From the start, Nature gives us clues as to what our talents may be. But it will be up to us to listen carefully to the clues, try them out to see if they fit.
Fit as in, ‘Aha! This gets me excited. This lifts my spirits, doing it gives me the sense that I am transforming my life into something I feel good about and would like to share with others. Perchance even earn their approval.’
I say perchance because the approval of others is tricky. Here one day, gone the other.
But if in the process we have found self approval, we will be able to handle disapproval.
We will be able to square with our fears, our limitations and inevitable failures that are part of the quest.
Which brings me to politics.
All of us ought to have political opinions. Having formed them we should express them.
Given that politics determine who governs and administers the resources of a nation, having and expressing our political positions is a duty to ourselves and our communities.
We cannot be truly free if we choose to not express our political positions.
Hiding our views is akin to not exercising our freedom and thus letting others snatch it away from us.
If we allow it, sooner or later we will have to pay for it.
Our delay gives time for others, often less capable than us, to rise to positions from where they will tell us what to do with our lives.
We’re seeing it today anywhere there is a dictatorship.
Anywhere a group of people spoke louder than others, then waived a stick at those who chose to remain silent.
‘Don’t you dare,’ they said as they menaced and intimidated.
It could happen here, too, if we stay silent.
In the eternal quest to defend democracy from its enemies, silence is not an option.
Silence equals failure.
Should we feel tempted to be silent, look inward to what we value and give us the greatest sense of accomplishment. There lie our strengths.
They are the cradle of our freedoms. Of our courage. Of the power needed to fight those who want to separate us from what gives us life.
Oscarvaldes.medium.com
Oscar Valdes 