Rawen's Musings

Oh dear, this is something we see every day. Every single day we see and hear people screaming “My freedom is being attacked! I’m oppressed!” Now, there’s of course a significant group of people that is in fact having their freedoms under scrutiny, be it racial minorities, sexual minorities etc. And no, just because they’re not being lynched doesn’t mean everything is fine. It’s not fine at all and if you try engaging in some genuine perspective taking, you’ll start taking off your rose-tinted glasses. Why am I saying this? Because this text isn’t aimed at these people and calling them out for “whining'“. Not at all. The post I’m writing here is very much aimed at people who start screaming “My freedoms!” whenever they get called out at their miserable behaviour. They know they’re doing something bad and they got spotted. Well, my dear, “free-dumbs” (I’d use harsher language but … let’s keep, how we’d call it back then, some “institutional culture”), take a comfy seat, grab your favourite snack and listen. For I’m about to show you how you’ve become your greatest tyrant and how to get out (gosh, I’m getting reminded of the first post in this series).

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Personal freedom comes with personal responsibilty. If you can’t or don’t accept the latter, you will never have the former.

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Alright, let’s start with this one. How many times have we all encountered people that have been saying or doing something shady and being caught or even just making a mistake and shifting blame? I’m sure it happened more than once. And what do we think about them? That they should be held accountable, right? If you work on something, mess it up and customer, it’s you who has to apologise and fix the issue. Neither your boss, nor the customer. So why do you tolerate this with people that have some influence? Why do you let someone else take your personal responsibility away from you?

See what I did here? YOU allowed someone else to decide FOR YOU what is responsible and what is not. It sounds neat on the paper because you’re like “Wow, I can do whatever I want. And if it doesn’t work, it’s their fault. They made me do it.” And who is this “they”? Well, depends on who’s at the end of this “chain of blame”. And it’s absolutely NOT the person who took that responsibility from you.

But let’s come back to the statement “You allowed someone else to decide for you what is responsible and what is not”. Read it again and focus on “You allowed someone else to decide …” Sounds familiar? Does it resonate with “They’re controlling you!”? And you did this willingly, at YOUR OWN free will. YOU gave up your responsibility and with it YOUR personal freedom. You became your own oppressor. Your worst tyrant. And you don’t want to accept it. That nagging voice which seems to fuel your fear and anger is your conscience telling you that you made a huge mistake and you refuse to be held accountable. THAT is why you’re not free. Not some external enemy but your willing surrender of responsibility.

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Submission doesn’t bring peace and freedom. Because you can’t be free if you live in fear.

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And here’s the second part. Lately relevant due to our conflicted world but applies to personal matters as well. The amount of “peace-keepers” that cropped up is staggering. The incessant cries for “peace” are deafening. But here’s the problem. What they are calling for is not peace. Not at all. Their cries is their fear screaming for the uncertainty to end. But how can you end something that is one of the essences of living? That uncertainty will stay. It’ll haunt you for the rest of your life. The only result of your cries will be replacing one fear with another. A very familiar fear of being responsible for your actions. Yes, that exact fear I pretty much described before. The one thing you want to run away so much from. But can you see that you can’t? That sooner or later it’ll catch up and hold you accountable? By force if necessary?

So where’s your peace? Thrown away like your responsibility. And with it your freedom. All you have left is fear, anxiety, uncertainty. Yet again, you chose to lock yourself in the prison with you being the most cruel warden you can imagine.

So how to start breaking away from this and retake your freedom? Accept that feeling of uncertainty, apologise to those you hurt, forgive yourself and promise to do better. To make mistakes is to be human. And through mistakes we learn. And to learn from mistakes you need to be humble and accept accountability for them. This path in life is rough, full of twists, turns and steep hills to climb. But like with every exhausting hike there’s a reward at the end. In this case, the highest reward you can ask for; true freedom.

R.R.A.