Freedom

It is the Fourth of July.  After torrential downpours and strong winds, Washington is welcoming a splendid day.  Sunshine has broken through and brought non-humid temperatures in the 70s with it. (Thank you, Hurricane Arthur!)

I love being in Washington on the Fourth of July.  When we aren't having a tropical storm, people begin to whoop it up a full day in advance and often wear the red-white-and-blue for several days in advance.  There's a true sense of celebration.  It really is difficult for me not to spend some time in reflection about the nature of freedom.

Of course, what we really are celebrating today is a system of government.  Some would even say we are celebrating a system of economics, but I am not sure that is what our Founding Fathers had in mind.  But I look to personal freedom on this day.  While I will quickly admit that we may have more options in one system of government than another, personal freedom is something any of us can have without regard to what structures others have assigned to us.

Since I first read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning over a quarter century ago, I have believed the treatise to be the ultimate work on personal freedom.  For any who may not be familiar with the transformative little book, Frankl spent a significant period of time in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.  Yet, even in that environment, he found personal freedom.

He says, "...there were always choices to make.  Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom....Even though conditions...may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone."

Frankl continues, "...any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him--mentally and spiritually.  He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."

Even as I read those words again on the yellowed pages of my first copy, they move me.

I am an adventuresome traveler.  People have often said after hearing tales of my adventures, "I couldn't do that."  Well, of course, they could.  They have just chosen to believe they cannot. 

I love to dance but have only had a regular partner for maybe a year of the almost 20 years I have danced.  I just go and take my chances that there will be people with whom I can dance.  Sometimes, I am bored and leave early, but certainly in excess of 90 percent of the time, I dance...a lot.  A number of friends have said they'd like to dance but don't have a partner.  When I tell them my story, they say they couldn't go to a dance alone.  Of course, they could.  They are choosing to stay at home, and I choose to go and take my chances.

Over the years, I have moved from the Midwest to the West Coast without a job because I wanted to.  Later I moved the other direction to the East Cost without a job because I knew that I was fundamentally an East Coast person...and because I hated the weather in the Pacific Northwest.  Eight years ago last month I pulled up roots in North Carolina and moved to Washington, again without a job, because I was drawn to the city and the desire to be a public servant.  Many have told me they couldn't have done what I did.  Of course, they could.  I don't have any magic fairy dust that makes outcomes materialize perfectly.  Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for being very uncomfortable for months during the transition, but what I am willing to tolerate is also a choice.

Last week at work someone asked if I was going to apply for a program available to potential leaders of our Agency.  The program requires a "continued service agreement," which means if I enter the program I have to promise to work for the Agency for several more years.  I did sign such an agreement a few years ago, and I described it as "legal slavery."  Now as I look back at my attitude at that time, or even just this last week in my conversation about the new program, I know that my words were not true.  Those agreements are only "legal slavery" because I allow them to be.  I need to do a reset.

What we believe we can or cannot do is only determined by the extent of personal freedom we choose mentally and spiritually. 

My life clearly works better when I have chosen to be free of mentally confining limitations.  On this day of freedom, I am choosing to reassess where I have chosen freedom and where I have spurned it.  Who knows I really might jump out of an airplane before summer is over, and I may even find myself back in graduate school next year. Or maybe not.  I don't have to do something just because I can, but allowing myself to weigh all the options before deciding what I really want is, well, freeing.

Happy Independence Day!