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Today's
Meditation:
I'm very
often amazed by the number of people who claim that
they're free, yet who really don't have a good idea of
what that means. They've latched onto the term to
make themselves feel better, it seems, but they've given
no thought to whether they're actually free or not.
Their actions and words are those of people who are being
guided by forces outside themselves, yet they claim to be
governing themselves completely.
My
freedom doesn't come from a government telling me I'm
free. Nor does it come from simply being able to
wake up in the morning and deciding what I'm going to
do. My freedom, rather, is reflected in the choices
I make and my willingness to take risks of losing all that
I have in order to do what I know to be right. My
freedom is shown in the decisions I make that don't follow
the norms of society, that don't come as an effort to
maintain whatever safety or security that I believe I
have. It amazes me to see how many people have the
"freedom" to choose whatever clothes they want,
yet who stick to certain name brands, or who can't take
vacations when they want because their jobs demand their
presence during certain times of the year.
To be
sure, it's important to remember that with each decision
we make as free people, we give up certain other
ones. When I decide to teach, I decide to give up
the ability to take a week-long vacation in October to see
the autumn leaves. I spent four years in the Army,
and when I signed the papers I knew that I was giving up
many, many freedoms in the process, but it was a sacrifice
that I was willing to make-- and I was still a free
person. Giving up those freedoms, though, didn't
make me less free. In fact, some of the most free
people in the world may have lived under conditions that
seem to be least conducive to freedom, such as poverty or
totalitarian regimes. But they were free because
their minds and hearts were free; while they might not
have had complete freedom of expression or movement, their
freedom was an interior condition rather than an exterior
one.
Our
freedom represents a huge responsibility to ourselves, an
important need or requirement to make the most of it that
we can. Because I'm free right now, for example, I'm
going to be leaving the job that has become less
challenging and moving on to I don't know what or where--
I'm going to let life push me where it wants me to
go, to a place where I hope I'll be able to make and
important contribution to the lives of others. After
all, freedom is about using the freedom to do something
significant for others, and not about grabbing everything
we can for ourselves.
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