In George Orwell’s chilling book 1984, the characters live under a totalitarian government called Big Brother. Big Brother watches everyone all the time, listens in on their conversations, and controls all the information they see. Beyond that, it doesn’t even allow anyone to think negatively about it. Rather than just executing anyone caught thinking against Big Brother, it tortures, brainwashes, and manipulates them until they surrender and love Big Brother. Fortunately, unlike in 1984, we always have the ability to think for ourselves and decide how to feel about anything. This is one freedom that hardly gets mentioned even though we all have it and nobody can take it away from us.
Freedom is all about knowing that only you can make decisions about how you feel, what you think, and how you react to any given situation. You’re in control of yourself, so nobody can make you feel or think a certain way; only you can decide those things for yourself. In short, your freedom doesn’t depend on anyone behaving in a certain way toward you. Understanding this intellectually is much easier and more attainable than embracing it and living it out, but making it a way of life is well worth the effort. Your choice to live in freedom is strengthened by distinguishing between what will improve your life and what will reduce it, and then, as much as possible, pursuing the former while avoiding the latter. This can be done by focusing on the areas of your life over which you have the most control, examining your values and interests to determine and order your priorities, and figuring out where you want to go in life and then working backwards to develop a plan to get there. That will put you on a path of your own making and prevent you from being pushed around by the momentum of your culture, any unrealistic expectations from people around you, or lack of direction on your part.
There are many types of freedom that you can obtain if you choose, including but not limited to the following: freedom from incessant thinking, negative thinking, destructive self-talk, past pain, self-imposed limitations, taking what other people say and do personally, and having to trade huge amounts of your time for money. Harry Browne talked a great deal about freedom and several traps we can fall into that prevent us from living as freely as we could be. Additionally, Stephen Covey, Don Miguel Ruiz, and Eckhart Tolle explore the extent to which our mindsets affect our freedom in their books The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Four Agreements, and The Power of Now, respectively. And lastly, Tim Ferriss uses The 4-Hour Workweek to show some possible ways that we can free up a great deal of our time and spend it as we like while still making a living (financial freedom). As you might have guessed, these people and their works have all heavily influenced my thoughts on freedom. Since I’ve had a good bit of time now to process their ideas and try them out for myself, I’ve seen major improvements in each area of my life. I still have a lot to learn and work on with all of this, but I wanted to share my take and experience thus far with you in the hopes that it will allow you to live a freer, fuller life if that’s what you want. The choice is yours.