"It comes down to a simple choice really. Get busy living or get busy dying." -The Shawshank Redemption
Freedom is a funny thing. For something so cherished, it is rarely appreciated until it is threatened. "Freedoms from" are obvious. These are the simple liberties that we enjoy merely as a result of not being actively oppressed or controlled. They represent opportunity in all its forms. "Freedoms to"are more difficult to define. They are the result of self-control and self-mastery. These are the steps on the way to self-actualization.
Freedom from can be thought of as negative freedom, or the removal of constraint. As children we are highly controlled. Meal times, bedtimes, school, etc. are all predetermined for us. Most of our beliefs are merely extensions of our family's. As we age we are exposed to greater degrees of negative freedom and, therefore, opportunities to choose our future. Our teenage years are fertile ground for questioning our upbringing and rebelling when necessary. By age eighteen we can vote and are considered adults, yet true adulthood typically comes in our twenties and thirties once we have created our own lives and started our own families.
The release of constraint, however, does not an adult make. The more choices that exist, the harder it becomes to choose wisely between them. This is one reason why wealth is an inaccurate measure for happiness. Many a privileged youth has fallen into addiction, despair, and despondency due to an abundance of opportunity coupled with insufficient internal drivers of behavior. In essence, they fall into the false belief that more freedom equals more satisfaction. This equation is only true if the aforementioned freedom is freedom to.
Freedom to is positive freedom, or the addition of function. Positive freedom must always come with sacrifice. Ex-Navy SEAL Jocko Willink wrote about this concept in his book Extreme Ownership. Discipline = Freedom was the mantra that he espoused. At first glance it seems contradictory but not when we consider freedom to. By maintaining a disciplined diet, workout routine, and habit of intellectual, social, and moral development, we earn the ability to exercise more freedoms. We gain function and longevity and reach towards being the best version of ourselves--self-actualization.
We are all constrained by variables outside of our control. We can't change our family of origin, our past, nor the inevitability of our death. What we can change, however, is far more powerful. We can change our attitude, and by doing so we can choose our future. Viktor Frankl famously wrote in his book A Man's Search For Meaning, that the single most important factor in surviving the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps was the attitude that the prisoners took. Those who raged against the unfairness of the situation soon fell in defeat, no matter how strong they were physically. On the other hand, those who maintained their spiritual freedom and kept positive in spite of their suffering were much more likely to make it through.
Freedom to will require commitment. It will require restraint. It will mean missing out on what is popular in the service of what is right. It will take many hours of internal contemplation and self-testing, of sweat, blood, and tears. But in the end it will be worth it. In the end we will possess the key that can unlock any door, yet can never be lost.
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