365

15 - Your way

Are you free?
Do you walk on your own path?
Are you truly free when you still walk on a path?
What is freedom?

I'm not going to lie. There are days when I wake up in the morning, put the suit on, look at myself in the mirror, and ask myself: "Is that it? Is this what I am going to do for the next fifty, sixty years?". Days seem to be the same - endless uphill climbs with the following ones higher than the priors. Yes, I am free, in the sense that I am not in prison. Yet I do not feel like it.

According to Dr. Viktor Frankl, we enjoy a more comfortable life than any generation before us. Most of us, who can read these words, are richer and healthier than most of the world. Yet, more than any other generation before us, we are so depressed. Collectively, we are so unhappy. We are so miserable. Why is that?

Lack of freedom might be a reason. "But we are not imprisoned!", you might say.
Are we not?

Most of us seem to struggle so hard to get out of ourselves. Daily routine is fine, but restrictive. Bad habits are easy to have, yet so hard to live with. Life is so oppressive. We do and do and do, trying to chase after that mythical happiness, yet it is always so faraway. We look at social media channels of others who seem to be happy and free with secret admiration and jealousy.

Is that freedom?

As I walked to the office in the morning, taking deep breaths, filling my lungs with the freshness of a new day, I dwelt on moments that I feel truly free: losing myself in deep thoughts, presenting my ideas, sharing a cab, contributing, meeting ... I'm amazed at how simple it is.
I might not find my freedom today, but I think it is not that far away. Freedom is not on an exotic island somewhere on the world. It might be just inside ourselves.

So, my friend, I wish you can also find a river flowing in you.