BLOG #15
What exactly is freedom? As Americans, we were granted freedom as it was written in the declaration of independence, the bill of rights, and in our democratic society. Yet as individuals are we actually free? I believe we have free will, but the world around us can sometimes pressure us into following societal and social norms. We tend to conform to constructs around us. When we listen to others or start caring about how others perceive us, that’s when we become weak and handcuffed by conformity. We do what is expected of us. We think like everyone else. We become lost. As young students we are expected to go to college, to get a degree in an academic discipline, and then we are expected to get a job and make a salary and live in a house with a white picket fence and all is right in the world. I say we have the freedom to DO anything we want to do. I know that sounds cliché, but I actually believe it to be true in this context. We have the freedom to fail. We have the freedom to succeed. We have the freedom to get off the couch and take our eyes off the screens that consume our attention every day and actually produce something or do something valuable. We have the freedom to be different from everyone else. We have the freedom to do what makes us happy or strong or beautiful or generous or down right motivated to make a change in our lives and the lives of people we love. Our founding fathers may have crafted our freedom through revolution and documentation and changed history for all people in this country today, but it is our duty as individuals to be individuals. Freedom is built into our very makeup as citizens of the United States, but a person is most defined by the way they use it.
– Jake Beman