Thinking is the Mother of Freedom

Discerning thought is the one thing that separates us more than anything else from all of God's creatures. Our minds are a vast bastion of freedom that no person can restrict without our permission.

And while it is a sad statement that we have become a society in which free thought receives a lot of lip service but very little actual support, that discussion is only relevant to those who choose to think for themselves. Few do.

The greatest threat to freedom is not oppression by others, it is the self-suppression of our own minds. This suppression characterizes itself in three forms: Habit, Fatigue, and Compliance.

Habits are useful for humans. Man is a creature of habit. Habits make life predictable which is essential in complex world with so many variables. But habits can be harmful as well. While we all have habits we should change, the habit of not thinking as a free man or woman should be at the top of the list.

When was the last time you truly thought like a free man or woman? Perhaps it was as long ago as your childhood. What were you going to do with your life before you were worn down by experience and necessity? What is it that you secretly wish to do now, if you only had the freedom to do it? Brian Tracy asks, "What one thing would you do if you knew you could not fail?" He goes on to ask, "Why aren't you doing it?"

The only place of true freedom is in one's mind. This year, exercise the freedom of your mind by thinking of what you would do if you knew you couldn't fail. Then think about how you can go about doing it.

We all succumb to fatigue. But what makes us most fatigued is one simple phrase: "Have to". How many times in a day do you "have to" do something? We "have to" go to work. We "have to" pick up the kids. We "have to" make dinner. Fatigue should be experienced because we've fully spent the freedom we enjoy, not because we've burned up the hours in "have to" activities.

When exercising your freedom of thought this year, use it to make those things you do free choices as well. Replace "have to" with "get to" and see how different you feel. Imagine the joy of "getting to" pick up the kids after school. Many parents don't have the privilege. Best of all, when "have to" becomes "get to" you just might find some of those "have to" activities aren't all that necessary.

Perhaps no other thing we experience is so defeating as compliance. Whether political correctness or family and peer pressure, we all comply with others to some extent. Compliance is good in that it provides common ground from which we all can prosper and be free. But everyone suffers when we comply in an attempt to appease others.

We all know people who had dreams and aspirations that were thwarted by well-meaning family and friends who cautioned them against their dreams. What fantastic new services or products have been kept from us by this type of compliance? Countless are the thought-provoking, idea generating ideas that have been held back due to fear of failure, success, or scrutiny of others. How devastating it is to the free mind to hold back ideas and beliefs.

There was a time when men and women said what they meant and meant what they said. That was a time of thought-provoking ideas. Today we may say what we think but don't think about what we say. More often than not we're reciting our lines or those of someone we listen to often. We comply with ideas instead of investigating them and seeking our own. We become involved in the conversation before we investigate what the conversation is about.

This year, commit to thinking through things that matter to you. Decide that you will be well-versed in those things and you'll stay out of those that don't matter to you. Things happen and are reported far too quickly to be an instant expert on everything. Think before you speak, but speak once you've thought.

To be truly free, one must think like a free person. Free people resist bad habits. Free people "get to" do things and limit those things they "have to" do. And free people rarely comply unless they have thought through things first and make a conscious choice to comply.

Free people are open to new ideas, especially those of their own thinking.


What Freedom Really Means

School is out. Many will graduate. Hot days at the pool, lake or beach, warm nights cooking out, and a well-deserved vacation. Summer, the time of freedom is here.

FreedomFreedom. Just utter the word and Americans immediately stand proud. It has a ring too it, a sweetness of sound that only a free people can understand. And as free people we know that freedom isn’t free. It comes through and with sacrifice, some on our own and some on our behalf. Someone always pays the price for freedom.

Freedom is a word we throw around a lot but when analyzed few of us know what it means. We may be able to define the word but finding it’s meaning is challenging because freedom can mean so many things. A simple search of the word returns over 396 million hits. From schools and towns named freedom to Webster’s multiple definitions, freedom is a word that has varied definitions but perhaps one uniform meaning.

Today you’ll choose what you will have for lunch, and for some, you’ll choose nothing at all. You had freedom in lunch. Lunch wasn’t free, but you had the freedom to choose if you would have lunch, what you would have for lunch, and if you would pay the price for lunch. In this example you might conclude that freedom means choice. And sometimes it does.

However, let’s say you are gluten intolerant. You are at a meeting and non-gluten free pizza is being served. Your only choice is to eat and become ill or not to eat and be hungry. You still have a choice, but is this really freedom? By any definition this example at least limits freedom. Most definitions of freedom include “without confinement, coercion, or restraint”. This is why we must find the meaning and not just the definition of the word.

As I have come to understand the meaning of freedom, the best, all-encompassing meaning is that one has control. The extent of freedom you enjoy is directly attributable to the degree of control you have in a given situation. And for the most part we enjoy a great deal of freedom.

I cringe when I hear people say (myself included) “I have to go to work.” Think of all the wrong messages in that one line we recite all too often. The sacrifice of freedom indicated in that six-word sentence is evident. “Have to” means we wouldn’t choose to if we had a choice. Is that really true? What does that say about us? Are we willing slaves to our labor? Have we build lives of quiet desperation, purchasing our confinement by our financial dependence on work we “have to” do?

Sadly for many this is the case. They head off to work they never intended to do. Somehow they landed in this job they tolerate but wouldn’t do if they had a choice. That’s the way they see it; they have no choice.

Which brings us around to the meaning of freedom. Control. Ask any of those people who go to work because they “have to” and you’ll find they truly believe they have no choice. Upon further inspection however you’ll find they have chosen the life they lead willingly, without coercion, as a better option than the unknown alternative. In this way they may not realize it but they are in control. At any moment they could, given the need, change the work they are doing or and find something else to do. If they only understood their need they would pay the price to change. But they choose not to. They are in control.

They see themselves as the fly on the windowsill. Feverishly exhausting their efforts on a task at which they will never succeed. Freedom is just beyond the glass and yet the harder they try, the closer they come to losing their freedom and their lives. If only they would turn around and see the open door behind them, if they would just fly a bit higher and find the open window, they could enjoy the freedom their work has provided.

Of course there are those among us, far too many, who have no work. While it may not seem like it, this is a great time of freedom. In this moment they have the ability to clearly choose their path. While many will take whatever they can get and fall into the cycle again, some will break free and chart a new course, find fulfilling work, or even start their own business.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to have work, we should examine the choice we make each day to engage in it. A simple shift in our attitude toward the work we do can make a huge difference in our results. Fly a bit higher, or perhaps fly in a different direction. You are in control. And that is really what freedom is all about.


Is This Country Worth The Sacrifice?

Arlington National CemetaryOn this Memorial Day, would those who fell in order to secure and maintain our freedom find the sacrifice worth it? Do those families who will look across the table and see an empty seat feel their loss is being honored?

On virtually every issue we are a country divided. From gays in the Boy Scouts to the IRS snooping around in the personal telephone calls of reporters, those who are informed fall squarely into two camps on each issue. But that’s not the division. The real division in our country is those who are informed and those who are not.

Our citizens for the most part are pitifully undereducated. Not in the traditional sense, although many feel that is true as well, no this void of education is in the ways of the world and what is happening beyond our sphere of influence that has a dramatic impact on us. What happens elsewhere has long-lasting, often irreversible consequences.

Sadly, most of our nation is wrapped up in the exploits of Kanye and Kim, the sensational trial of Jodi Arias, and the day-to-day challenges of just getting by. It is truly astounding that the Boston Marathon Bombing story is almost completely forgotten until a person of interest is shot and killed by interviewing authorities. And just as quickly it will be forgotten again. Yet, whether Jodi lives or dies dominates the airwaves as if her story and life will impact any of ours. Let me help you – it won’t. It’s chewing gum for the brain, nothing more.

Which begs the question, “Was the sacrifice of our fallen soldiers and their families worth it?” Is this the country they thought they were defending when they gave their all?

Sacrifice is something our country has forgotten as well. We believe that sacrifice is cruel and fail to recognize the honor and duty in sacrifice. This is the motivating factor for a young man or woman to join our armed forces as it was in past generations. I recently heard a story of a man who served in World War I and the tried to reenlist for World Ward II at the age of sixty. Somehow I don’t think he was the only one. Many of our wounded warriors return to active duty.

We have forgotten sacrifice in part because it is so painful to bear. And we have most certainly decided that pain is unacceptable in any form. Therefore, we avoid the pain of sacrifice at all costs. But we’ve also forgotten sacrifice because we cannot begin to understand someone who would die for us. This is why so many have a problem with Christianity. Why would God send his Son to die for our sins? It makes no sense. Not only are we not worthy, but he’s God! He could do anything he wants.

And there’s the crux of the problem with sacrifice. We know deep down that we couldn’t do it. And yet there they are, the miles and miles of white tombstones in cemeteries across this land, marking the place where a soldier rests. A soldier who died for us.

This Memorial Day, as you chat at the backyard barbecue or listen to the news, whether you find great pride or you find anger and frustration in what is happening in our country, whether you sit in disgust over the behavior of those on the other side of the aisle from you or whether you find amazing collaboration, whether you find yourself unemployed, under employed, employed, or financially blessed, and as you wonder why so many people are so uninformed, you may begin to wonder if their sacrifice was worth it.

But this is what they died for. You have the freedom to speak you mind and the freedom to practice your faith. You have the freedom to learn all you can learn or to be completely uninformed. And you have the freedom to recognize and honor their sacrifice. One way to honor their service is to sacrifice some of your time and become informed. Freedom requires an informed, engaged, and committed electorate that understand the issues, contacts their representatives, and exercises their right to vote.

But particularly on Memorial Day, you can honor their sacrifice by visiting a cemetery or a family who has lost someone through service in our Armed Forces. Perhaps spending some time on line looking up your ancestors would reveal sacrifice in your family tree. Or you could just put out a flag and say a prayer. Do something to enlighten you and your family to the sacrifice made on your behalf. You may have to sacrifice a bit, but it will honor theirs.

Most will celebrate by going to the beach, visiting friends and relatives, a quick dip in the pool, or a cook out. Aside from a day off work they’ll barely know it is Memorial Day, much less the purpose of the holiday. They’ll go about our day with barely a thought of those brave men and women this day is celebrating.

And that’s exactly what they died for. They died so you and I may have the freedom to choose. We can choose to be as informed or uninformed as we please. If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

You may think this country isn’t worth the sacrifice, isn’t worth the lives lost, but the brave men and women who died for you and me did and that is what really matters.