Freedom: The Ultimate Goal

I wanted to take the opportunity to go through what I call an archaeology of freedom: meaning, I want to lay out a first approach and then introduce further layers to go deeper each time into our assumptions about freedom.

Obviously, it's a huge topic. We can spend days on it and weeks on it, but I'm hoping that in this series of posts we can really hone in on the essential nature of freedom for the purposes of living a freer life.

That's really what we're concerned with here. 

So let's start at the top. The fundamental definition of freedom is, “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.” The idea being that something is free if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state.

It follows, then, that freedom exists in direct proportion to the number of choices available. And I think we can all kind of relate to this in our own way, in our own lives. The more choices we have in any given situation, the freer that we feel, right? If I feel in a relationship with someone the ability to say A, say B, say C in response, I have a freer relationship with them. I'm not constrained by having to say (or NOT say) a certain thing.

As we move through life, we can see this playing itself out in action. The more choice I have in my reactions, the freer I am in that situation. If something happens and I'm forced into anger, if I'm forced into frustration, there's not much freedom there, even if I feel justified in feeling that emotion.

It's almost like the situation is overpowering us and dictating our response. So we can start to think about the number of choices and the degree of our freedom we have in any given situation.

That's the foundational level. Now let's think about the big-picture trajectory of our lives. If you have this idea of freedom in the grandest sense, is there some point in your life where you can remember seeking freedom from something?

It could be:

• an upbringing
• a belief
• a relationship
• a religion
• an education
• a learning
• a place, a geography

Chances are for most of us – certainly it's true for me – there was a point in time where we were seeking freedom from something. And if you're seeking freedom from something, then you're moving towards something else.

So then we have to ask ourselves, “What am I seeking freedom towards? What is my freedom moving towards?”

Take a moment and just think about in your own life, where in your life did you seek freedom from something, from someone, from a belief, from a certain condition?

And where in your life were you seeking freedom to something? You can replace these with a sense of past and future as well. Maybe there's a past you’re seeking freedom from and a future you’re seeking freedom towards.

This is a powerful idea for framing the trajectory of where we are in our lives in respect to freedom. Let that soak in for a moment and see where you are now. 

Is there still a freedom from that you're working with? And is there a freedom to that you're also working with? 

There's no right or wrong here. Just assess where you’re at. And I'm going to ask you to place a pin in this idea for just a little bit.

Coming back to the definition of freedom, it revolves around this idea of constraint, and that the fewer constraints we have, the more freedom that we embody. 

And essentially, as human beings, we're constantly bumping up against things. That's just the nature of our existence. We exist in relationship with everything and everyone around us. Therefore, we are in a constant relationship of sharing with everything. And so if we're in relationship with everything and everyone on some level – even if it's a very ephemeral relationship – and in each of these encounters, there is a bumping up against a person or a situation, that is going to, in and of itself, provide a set of constraints. 

So how do we recognize what our constraints actually are?

I like to think of constraint as an iceberg. As we know only about 10% of an iceberg floats above the surface, while the remaining 90% lives below the surface, hidden.

And that is the way constraints operate in our lives. We have hidden constraints all around us and within us, which means the work of having these conversations around where those relationships cause dissonance is up to us to do. 

So in those bumping up against people, places, and things, situations, there are ways of being in how we react and how we show up… and we may not always like what we see in that reflection. 

That is the spotlight on our constraints. These places where we are still constrained in our ability for free expression, free self-expression. And where those constraints are, there is a lack of freedom. Right? Something happens and you react a certain way. You're not proud of it, but you feel like you had no choice. You were on autopilot in that moment. This indicates a lack of freedom because there was a lack of choice due to the constraint. 

Hence, that equals an opportunity for growth and an opportunity to break through, once awareness is placed on that constraint.

But we can only know about it when we actually bump up against it. It's like two particles hitting each other. We have to actually be in relation, be in action, to discover and uncover those hidden constraints.

And so that's an opportunity on an ongoing basis for us to constantly look at where our constraints are and we can look for them in those moments of interaction. In particular where we're not really proud of how we responded to something. That's a telltale sign for a constraint present. 

We're not based on conditioning. Conditioning equals constraint.

Have you ever witnessed your constraints in action? What was your immediate response? What steps have you taken to address these constraints?