“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
I’ve never lived a life like today. A year ago it wasn’t even in my dreams. At times I’m not recognizing myself, but I like the person I’m growing into. Currently I travel around Spain and meet amazing people on my way who share incredible knowledge with me. So just in a few weeks I’ve learned a lot about planting and gardening, professional copy writing, how to do pottery and to paint, how to peel almonds, how to pickle olives and much more. I’ve met incredible, totally different people and each one has taught me a valuable lesson and left thousands of impressions. Each one of them contributed to my personal freedom.
I don’t have a single plan of what will be tomorrow and now I love this uncertainty. I don’t know if I will always have this attitude, but today it helps me to ground myself and to grow into the best version of myself. I planned all of my life properly and it never fully satisfied me. Now I tried the taste of something new and its delicious: the taste of freedom.
I’m sure that each one of us has a individual definition of freedom. For a long time, overall, for me it was getting a degree and having a safe, prestigious job. All of this seems quite superficial to me today, because I’ve learned, that freedom doesn’t come from the outside. Freedom and success are also two completely different things. Success doesn’t necessarily mean, that one is free or the other way around. Freedom is something very intuitive and subjective.
My perception of freedom today would be the following:
First, I believe that freedom is a synonym to good health ( = healthy nutrition, preferably consistent workouts, good sleep and a positive attitude to life). When we are healthy and full of energy, we are capable of moving mountains. Without physical and mental health, all of what we often don’t appreciate, isn’t possible.
Freedom offers us the subtle feeling of genuine happiness and gratitude for being exactly in this place right now.
Freedom to me is standing behind who I am and not being afraid to change every given moment.
Freedom is to stop seeking approval from others for my own decisions (this one seems very hard to me).
Freedom to me is developing my mind, opinions, life itself and imagination, without attachment to them. Everything is in a constant change and this is the beauty of life. Each minute we can decide and re-create who we want to be and how we want to live. All the “circumstances” disappear once we understand this simple-complex truth of the universe, which is: we have the power, knowledge and skills within us to create our every day the way we want to. All we need is to believe, that we deserve this certain kind of life.
Freedom is taking responsibility for every step in our life. The responsibility includes also the “failures”. We have the responsibility for the outcome of our actions, conversations or relationships.
Freedom is seeing opportunities and chances, where others might not see an exit. And chances are everywhere, we just have to be open enough to accept them.
In Russia we have a great saying:
“The only place without an exit is the tomb.”
Once we don’t breath anymore and our body is dead, we can’t change anything. But as long as we’re breathing and our mind works, we are the artists of our lives. We can draw our lives however we want. It all starts in the mind anyways. What feels better, to know that there’s no exit or to illustrate beautiful pictures of a bright, happy and fulfilled life? Often it’s enough to keep an alternative way in mind. And there is an alternative way for everything.
Freedom is choosing our personal and professional path by listening to our inner calling. Freedom is being aware, that we can change our path every moment. It’s such an interesting journey to explore our limitless potential and new interests.
Freedom needs a lot of courage, faith and trust in the flow. There’s no space for doubts or concerns. Freedom needs a huge willingness to accept the wonderful, happy life, which will come with freedom. It’s not easy to accept that we deserve such a good life without working our asses off doing boring jobs. We aren’t taught to take life easy, because it supposed to be so hard.
Most of the (life-) artists seek individual freedom and I believe, that all they seek is the freedom to be themselves, to have an unlimited personal and creative space, to fail, to succeed, to re-arrange themselves, to grow and to improve. This is the base each one of us should learn from the beginning on: we are worth of the freedom to model our lives the way we’d like to (instead of being brainwashed about supporting the system by: getting a degree – finding a boring job – not liking the job – getting frustrated – consuming – being short term happy – consuming more – being in fear to lose the job – keeping the job – keeping the unhappiness – consuming – being depressed – getting sick – taking medicine – getting even more sick – consuming – etc.)
Freedom to me is realizing that, yes there might be things out of the zone of our control, though the most important ones belong to us: our mind and body. By that I mean the health of both.
Freedom to me is accepting the periodic leisure, dissatisfaction, fears and insecurities. Nevertheless not forgetting the endless power and importance of our presence in this universe. We are an inconceivably important part of the whole picture. Each one of us. Even if at times we feel down, it’s freedom, to feel that everything passes away sooner or later.
Freedom to me is waking up and smile because of the person I grow into and am ready to be. It’s all about realizing our greatness, self-worth and importance. Freedom might be the most beautiful choice we’re able to do.
What is freedom to you? How do you define it? In what ways do you feel freedom in your life?
Love,
Olga
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