Freedom

Isn’t life grand? A consciousness that allows us to decide what we like to do and what we want to do? Freedom in all aspects except the ones we deny ourselves in? A beautiful world that we can take to in any way we please? Now, you may think some of these things don’t seem true. Law dictates we follow it or get punished (if we’re caught, anyways ). Parents put rules in place that hold the same concept; obedience or sanctions. Now, I won’t say that disobeying the law or your parents is what you should do. I’m saying it’s something you can do. As a human being, you are an individual. All choices that can be made, and I mean CAN as in they are possible to make, can be made. You can decide to murder and pillage, decide to run away, decide to fly to another country if that’s what suits you. Of course those are extremes- but what I’m getting at is you are in control of your life as long as you stick with yourself and are conscious, not to the laws and rules others put on you, but the ones you put on yourself.

How can you say you’re an individual if you spend your life doing what is expected of you in every way? Who is truly free between the man who works the nine to five and the man who gets put in prison or killed for shooting up, or fucking a prostitute? Sure, one may be in a physical cell, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t free mentally. Between the two, my respect goes to the man who is in prison for living his life- not surviving through it. I may not respect what he did in order to get to the point of living, but the living itself is impressive in whomever may obtain it. It’s like the concept of enlightenment, but on a lesser scale. In order to tone it down a bit I’ll give lesser examples. The kid who gets put in the corner for going too far from his house against his parents orders, or the one sitting on the couch because he stayed inside and wasn’t involved?

Our entire lives we are taught there is a system we have to go through, rules we have to obey at all times. ‘ They taught us how to walk and talk, but now all they want us to do is sit down and keep quiet. ’ In a world where everyone wants their kids to be leaders, all we are taught to do is follow. I find this to be appalling in every sense of the word. I’ve met children who used to love a sport, and now hate it because their parents have made it their mission to make it absent of fun- a chore that needs to be done rather than an activity that should be enjoyed.

The same thing happened with school- remember back in your first few years, having an enjoyment for the things that went on? Even if you were yellow carded for talking, the day went on and you would talk again. But soon that faded- we were really pushed into sitting in quiet little rows staring at a screen and memorizing whatever we could as our teacher ranted so we could get into college. They even take away our individual ways of completing assignments. If your paper doesn’t hold exactly what they want- points off. If you did the math problem a different way and got the right answer nonetheless, points off. Things people actually enjoy doing are put on a lesser level than the academics- that although can be important are shoved down our throats whenever we get into the habit of being slacktivists because of the disinterest these years have caused us.

Furthermore, they hold four subjects that tend to be thoroughly unenjoyable and put them above all other classes you may take. Math, history, english, science. Why are they so much more important than the other classes they only throw in to give us credits? Art, music, technologies , drama, shakespeare. There are jobs out there for artists and music enthusiasts, but they apparently pale in comparison to those big four that rule whether or not you get to go on to the next grade.

Now, tell me this. Whenever you are stressed is it because you are putting it on yourself, or is it because you are having troubles meeting someone else’s (or society’s) expectations? I’m assuming you have both, but the ladder majorly trumps the former overall. Though, I suppose in a way stress is always put on you by yourself. You let yourself want to meet these expectations, and when you can’t or it’s difficult it makes your heart beat faster. That’s why people need to slow down and try to figure out if these expectations are something that they actually want to meet, or if they are something they feel they have to meet.

Sometimes life may feel like a freight train, like you aren’t in control of it and everything sucks. This is partially true, as you are not in control of all aspects in life. You can not control other people, or your environment. What you can control is how you adapt to both of these things, and how you react. There will always be things in life that seem to be going pretty fucking shitty, but it’s necessary. If life never had any downs how could we tell when we were having a good up? The trick is to remember that, even when you’re drowning in shit, there are reasons to smile and things that you can change to make those smiles shine brighter and mean more. I don’t care if you have to run away from home or disobey every law there is- nothing in life is more important than your happiness. Not anyone, not anything.

These ideas may seem selfish, but sometimes people need to be a little selfish. If you go through your life always worrying about others or putting them before yourself, were you really able to live YOUR life? Sure, it was your decision to do it, and helping people is fine; what isn’t fine is putting them so far over you that they are the only ones who can make you feel like you’re making something out of your life. Live for yourself.