Law #14 - Freedom is a dish best served
When in doubt, choose to live.
“I have passed the mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the firmament of Complete and Unbounded Freedom; I am in comfort, I am in peace.” - Kahlil Gibran
What is freedom? It depends on who you ask.
Elder: Freedom is being healthy and sane.
Adult: Freedom is a tax-free system.
Student: Freedom is not having to learn geography when I’m only good at math.
Child: Freedom means you can do whatever your parents don’t want you to do. Even eat sweets.
Baby: Goo-goo! Ga-ga!
Freddie Mercury: Radio Ga-Ga!! Radio Goo-Goo!!
Man: Freedom is expressing your feelings without being stigmatized.
Woman: Freedom is walking on the street without being harassed or assaulted.
Parents: Freedom is for our child not to have the same difficulties we had growing up.
And so on and so forth.
Freedom is making choices that other people might find hard. Follow up to the story from November.
I had a proposal recently, that involved a contract and some money, but not too much, considering it was meant to be part-time. I was on the verge of accepting it, but I thought the following: Ever since November, I feel much better. My work/life balance improved incredibly and I now have time to write (both for my blog and my book) besides doing what I feel is excellent work in the project I am involved in and being part of a tremendous team of wonderful people.
Accepting the additional proposal would have meant unnecessarily burdening myself with an extra workload that wouldn’t have brought me any satisfaction besides the modest sum specified in the contract.
There are things in life more valuable than money, and if I’ve learned a lesson this year, it’s this exact one. I couldn’t in good heart condemn myself to a fate like that when I have barely escaped a troubled system that now tries to grasp me in its claws again.
So I decided to kick back at it and to refuse. Categorically and finally. With age comes the realization that your well-being, your mental health, and your personal life must be above all else, and you should never ever compromise on any of those.
It also helps a lot to have the right people around you who support you and stand by your decisions, and oh boy do I have someone to thank for how good I feel right now! I wouldn’t have been here had it not been for my significant other, whom I love and cherish. She is my life and the anchor I cling to whenever my ships are going awry. I love you!!!
(Disclaimer: Credit is also due to my lawyer, who I constantly annoyed with a contract draft that didn’t bear fruit. I owe you, dude! And I’ll pay up! Cheers!)
If I can give an extra piece of advice here, it would be that whenever you have doubts about doing something, that’s a telltale sign you shouldn’t do it.
A contract that you suspect might backfire? Refuse it.
Second thoughts about going to a party in a strange neighborhood? Don’t go.
Want to buy something, but it doesn't seem OK to pay that much for it? Then don’t buy it, regardless of how “limited” of a product it is.
The scenarios are plenty, in every aspect of life. They don’t stop here, but it’s up to us to recognize them and act accordingly.
When in doubt, choose to live. Take a deep breath, follow that advice, and enjoy life in harmony.
To better understand how I feel right now, imagine you are dressed in a white suit or dress, with a white hat. It’s a summer evening, you are on a beach and brought a foldable chair, a bottle of the best wine you had, a glass, and a corkscrew. You walk up to where the waves reach the shore, a little beyond the reach of the water.
You can smell the saltwater and feel a soft wind going. You choose a spot, then you unfold the chair and set it in the sand. You sit on it carefully and then you open the wine bottle.
POP!
The summer breeze caresses your face and it feels magnificent. You pour wine into your glass, and carefully set the bottle on the sand next to you, stabilizing it so it can’t fall.
You raise the glass and swiftly absorb the scent of the wine through your nostrils. The sound of the waves hitting the shore at your feet, promptly returning to where they came from, feels like an endless cycle that cannot be broken, one of nature’s axioms.
You sip as the wind gently envelops you, looking into the infinity projected by the seemingly endless body of water in front of you.
There is only water and sky. Opposite of it, there is only sand and wind.
And in the very middle of it all, there is only you.
That is how I feel.
THAT… IS FREEDOM!
When in doubt, choose to live. - Terry Pratchett