Before continuing with another aspect around living an emotionally, and even spiritually free life, we will pause because I want to discuss the big idea, ‘Why freedom is important?’ and the big question, ‘What should freedom lead to in my life?’
Why is freedom important?
Living in a ‘free’ country has benefits and advantages. We are able to live where we want to, work where our abilities meet others needs, and vacation to places that we would not be able to normally visit.
However, while physical freedom is important, emotional freedom, intellectual freedom, and spiritual freedom are even more important. Physical freedom is easier to quantify, because one’s resources (called ‘money’) impose the only limits, and in some cases, ones resourcefulness exceeds their resources when they really want to achieve something. The other three freedoms I mentioned are harder to measure.
Perhaps the next easiest is intellectual freedom. In our current world, we are able to learn virtually anything we want to. Need to know how to replace a roof on your house? There are hundreds of how-to resources to help you. Need to learn/find a new recipe for some guests who are coming over who are picky? There are thousands of options to choose from (and many have easy flexibility to allow you to calculate the dish for either 2 people or 20 people). Need to find out more about a relationship issue you are facing? There are over a million people with opinions to help answer your problem.
In our current world, intellectual freedom is here, but we can easily become overwhelmed because we can learn so much about anything. There is so much information available that we can become trapped in learning to ‘learn’, and miss learning to ‘do’.
The next freedom is emotional freedom, and this is a lot harder to quantify, and manage. We can feel as though we are doing great emotionally for weeks, or even months, but then something happens, and we lose our emotional cool. What causes this, and is our reaction voluntary or involuntary? Our newsletter last week, and in coming weeks, will help us move forward and become more emotionally free.
The hardest to both quantify, manage, and change is our spiritual freedom. We are blessed with spiritual freedom, because we have the freedom of choice, and the freedom to continue following the beliefs we grew up with, or forming new beliefs. What makes spiritual freedom so hard is the idea of truth. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different ideas surrounding spirituality, theology, religion, church, and God, and if there is only one truth, how can anyone discover it in such a big, conflicting maze.
In spirituality and our beliefs about life, I have found the following quotation to be true: “He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to.” — Harry Emerson Fosdick.
We must be intentional about our choices and beliefs in the context of our spiritual freedom to choose what to believe about life, because our choices about our beliefs will shape everything in our lives.
Next week we will look at the other question, “What should freedom lead to in my life?”
Until then, join the conversation below!
~Cam