The Price of Freedom
A lot of people say they want freedom or more freedom. But, few are actually willing to pay the price.
The price of freedom is very high.
It requires that you:
- Let go of all your incorrect or misguided ideas about freedom that will keep you from it.
- Stop doing activities that make it more difficult or outright stop you from achieving the freedom you want.
- Learn, master, and only do what empowers you to achieve, have, and keep the freedom you want.
Common incorrect ideas about freedom that will keep you from having it
1) Freedom is freedom from responsibility.
WRONG. Freedom is not freedom from responsibility. At minimum you have to be completely responsible for yourself, your choices, your actions, what you cause, what you create, and the resources (and their acquisition) required to live your life. If you are not—someone else is–and must be, so you are not completely free, nor are you in control of your life.
Furthermore, those who are not actively being responsible for their life and their freedom are doomed to lose the freedoms they have.
2) Freedom is the freedom to do nothing.
WRONG. While having some rest and respite is a good thing. Doing nothing for long periods of time does not lead to freedom–it leads to poverty, decay, and disorder. Eventually resulting in you losing control of your life and any freedoms you have.
The truth about freedom and keeping it
If you want to be free –and by this I mean have lasting freedom in your life in all or some ways you must:
- Be in control of and responsible for yourself and what you are doing.
- Be in control of and responsible for your choices and actions.
- Be in control of and responsible for the resources you need to maintain your life and your freedoms, as well as the acquisition of them.
- Be ready, willing, and able to face and work with whatever is difficult for you or whatever difficulties you face that enables and empowers you to be free and maintain your freedom no matter what.
- Be willing to face and work through whatever is holding you back from being free –no matter how difficult it may be.
- Be willing to discipline yourself to only be and do truly positive success causing things that empower you to be free and maintain your freedom –and do so in a way that you can consistently support over the long term.
- Be willing to learn, become, and do whatever it takes to achieve the freedom you want in each area of life no matter what it takes for however long it takes. And do this in a way you can truly sustain in a consistent way over the long term.
- Be willing to face the truth of yourself, your choices, actions, and state of things in your life on a continuous basis to maintain them in a positive way that empowers and enables you to maintain your freedom. Actively stopping and ending what does not.
To do all of this you must have or acquire the necessary strength to endure difficult and adverse things so you can do whatever is required to achieve the freedom you want, no matter how difficult it is, or you will lose it, and/or never achieve it.
Those who seek and value what is easy above freedom will fail to do what is difficult and necessary to achieve and maintain it over the long term.
This is why having the necessary strength, ability, and confidence to successfully face and work through what is difficult is so important for those who want freedom, and indeed anything worthwhile in life. Without it, you are simply not ready to achieve, have, or maintain the freedom you desire because the instant difficult things stand in your way you will not be able to deal with them effectively and fail.
You must face and work with what is difficult if you want to succeed
If you truly want freedom one of the most important skills to master in life is your ability to work with what is difficult and adverse (difficult and negative).
However, these are among the most difficult of all things to master, because it requires that you master yourself so that you can remain in control of you and what you are doing while you work with difficult and adverse things. If you can’t, you will fall apart and fail when things get “too difficult” and then you’re stuck.
Common things you will have to learn to consistently successfully control and manage so you can handle difficulties and adversities are:
- Your fear
- Your overwhelm (extreme stress)
- Your discomfort
- Your pain
- Your worry
- Your anxiety
- Your uncertainty
- Your lack of confidence
- Your lack of experience
- Your tiredness and exhaustion
- Your emotions
- Your reactions
- Your habitual behaviours that aren’t helping you
- Your lack of knowing the truth of how to work with something easily and just keep trying until you figure it out
You’ll have to learn how to successfully work with:
- Negative people, interactions, circumstances, and results.
And learn and master:
- Success and freedom causing knowledge and skills for each area of life you want success and freedom in so you can consistently apply them to achieve what you want.
If you can’t do all of this you will never achieve more in life than what is already easy for you, or only a little difficult.
Why?
Because when life gets really hard, especially for long periods of time, you will grow weary of the difficulties you face, not know what to do, give up, give in, burnout, fail, and/or lose so hard that your confidence will break. When this happens you will never try to achieve what you truly want again and then you’ll be stuck for life.
How do you become a master of freedom?
To truly master life and become a master of freedom and achievement you must become a master of difficulty –especially adversity, which are things that are both negative and difficult to work with and experience.
The true winners and losers in life on a grand scale (and long-term) are not the super intelligent or super talented, but people who are masters of difficulty and masters of adversity. They are the only ones who have the ability to endure what must be endured until they succeed and therefore they are the only ones who can and will.
Are you truly willing to pay the price of freedom?
Are you willing to become the person who truly can?
The answers to these questions will determine the course of your life and every choice that you make.