I have yet to encounter a person who is not clear on the fact that they want more freedom in their life. It is time we inspect the definition of this laden word.
There is always a general view on what freedom means and how it can be achieved within any community. The view on freedom is directly dependent on the predominant mindset that is upheld within the community. There are, generally, two mindsets: A fear driven one, where freedom is always at risk, and an abundant one, where freedom is a shared commodity.
Within a society that operates on the premise of financial gain, freedom is seen as whatever money can buy you. So, whatever can bring you more money will bring you more freedom.
This reinforces the notion that a society that sees freedom as limited to financial resources will do anything to make more of it, hence the extreme transactionality we encounter on the daily, not just in our jobs, but in all aspects of our lives.
Transactional behavior always stems from a mindset of fear. The fear of not surviving and the fear of stagnation. These two are the inherent drivers that act across the layers of the societal cake: The ones who have little, work to remain alive. The ones who are at the top use their money to create more of it. They are the ones free to invest. And the ones in the middle use their freedom to advance to the top and fight stagnation. It’s the struggle for a limited resource.
It goes without saying that this very behavior is also limiting freedom towards the bottom. The less you have, the harder it is to create more of it because financial freedom never trickles down within a transactional economy. After all, the top relies on the bottom to provide their cheap labor and willingness to mindlessly consume. This can only be assured if they remain unfree, bound by tools that supposedly bring freedom, like credit cards, loans, affordable mortgages but we all know that they are really designed to rob them of freedom.
This also means that according to Maslow’s pyramid, within which we are currently living, only the wealthy have the freedom to reach transcendence and self-actualization. For the rest, living within the level of transactionality will be about working for freedom that caters to lower, less visceral needs. Full stop.
Is this what life is about? Of course not.
Life is nothing but a deep emotional experience. It goes without saying that self exploration and creation from one’s truth is a basic necessity that everyone needs to have unlimited access to. Without it, the greater part of society remains deprived from the very magic that is life and reduced to working and consuming assets, trapped in the illusion of toiling for reward.
This is where entrepreneurs make a difference by making one choice: Is my work going to serve my own advancement through financial gain (traditional), or is it about the creation and sharing of human value that offers freedom that becomes available to the system?
We are far less dependent on socio-political decisions than on our consciousness when it comes to our willingness to make freedom the shared commodity it is in every forest, body of water and nature altogether.
