Happy Fourth of July! Freedom is a word that can mean so many different things to people. The definition “by Merriam Webster as the quality or state of being free, such as: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. liberation from slavery or from the power of another.”
Freedom to me means the feeling of happiness and being me. Depending on where you live the external version of freedom could be simply being able to walk out your front door without fear or going shopping. Also it can mean financial freedom, physical freedom from being imprisoned, breathing fresh air, watching the sun rise and set.
I debated before writing this particular blog since it could be misconstrued. The decision to do it anyway came from taking a closer look and considering freedom from an internal perspective.
Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor. In reading his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, the meaning of freedom changed for me. One quote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
He survived atrocities that in our time we cannot even begin to comprehend. He chose to stay free in his mind, and in his heart. How can a human being not give into what he was subjected to?
I really do not know how he did that but as I read and study the mind, mindset and the brain, I am beginning to understand the power of our minds and how we do choose what we think.
Thus, freedom is a choice just as happiness is a choice. We can be free in our minds and hearts even if our circumstances look like a prison or actually are a prison as in Viktor Frankl’s case.
How FREE are you? I encourage you on this beautiful holiday we celebrate in America because of the bravery of many men and women to choose wisely as was said in a popular movie.
Choose the attitude of freedom regardless of where you live or where you are in life. Practice gratitude for starters and be free! I challenge you to experience it. Don’t allow life or your circumstances to control you and take you down.
Free yourself…..
