There was a question posed on the back side of my website, that was discussed in our adult Sunday school class in a little different format, but similar question. The question is, what does freedom mean? I’m not talking about on a large scale, just individually.

If you look the word up online there are several variations, but all of them say the right to act, speak, or think as the individual would like without hinderance. This is a good starting point, but it doesn’t really take life into consideration.

I think that freedom begins with individual rights first, like the definition above. But, I also think freedom does not include the right to act in a harmful way toward others. But beyond that basic definition, I believe there are many choices that we make every single day that helps us maintain our freedom or loose it.

True freedom, in my opinion, comes from living basic laws of nutrition and health and basic laws of moral conduct.

First – Basic laws of nutrition and health. You might wonder why I would include this in freedom. It is because when we choose to do unhealthy things, we become slaves to unhealthy habits or sickness. This slowly removes the opportunity to act and do what it is we might wish we could.

If you choose to take drugs, you become addicted and then your choices will always revolve around that drug rather than building a life, being productive, holding down a job, having a family, etc. Exercising seems like an optional thing while you’re young, but as we age, the less mobility we go into our older years with, the less quality of life we will have.

Health is freedom. It’s a choice we make all along the way, every single day of our lives. We are free to act – to be sedentary, eat too much, and waste away, or be active, eat healthy, take care of our bodies, and possibly gain more time, or at least more enjoyment of the time we have, along with more ability to create memories.

Second – Basic laws of moral conduct. The younger generations like to believe that truth is fluid, but it’s not; that there are no absolutes, but there are. Basic things like honesty in all aspects of your life, kindness and compassion regardless of the other persons status in society, fidelity and loyalty to spouse and family, agreeing to disagree while still being respectful and learning from each other, etc. There are so many more.

Why do these things lead to more freedom? Look at honesty for example. If you are consistently honest in all aspects of your life, you never have to remember which lie you told to whom and keep track of your false stories. It makes it much easier to sleep at night! This also leads to more freedom because the people you associate with never have to second guess you, your character is never in question.

Freedom is not the prevalent attitude of, “If I can do whatever I want, that means I’m free.” Freedom is about doing the things we should be doing so that we can continue making choices. It is being in charge of who we are. It is choosing to obey the principles that lead to more freedom, more choices, and more personal agency.

Freedom is also realizing that there are consequences for actions. Freedom is not dodging or trying to avoid consequences, but accepting that, based upon our choices, this is the result. I have noticed the less free a person is, based upon their personal choices, the more inclined they are to shout that life isn’t fair.

How free we are greatly depends upon the choices we make, long before we ever interact with other people.