Most of us think that what we really want is freedom.
But is that what we really want?
Have you ever thought or said to yourself that what you really want is total freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want?
I know I have!
I’ve heard many personal development gurus using that kind of language as well, encouraging you to become financially wealthy so that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want.
When I do coaching with people, and I ask them what they want to manifest in their lives, they will often say something along those lines as well.
At first glance “total freedom” sounds like a cool dream / goal to have, but here’s the truth that I realized about total freedom.
Chasing Total Freedom Is a Fantasy That Will Destroy Your Life
The truth is that so called “total freedom” is impossible for us as human beings.
The moment we as free spirits decide to incarnate on this earth, we give up “total freedom” in exchange for a chance to experience life as a human being who doesn’t have total freedom.
I mean ask yourself… can you REALLY ever have this so-called “total freedom” to “do anything you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want”?
Is there anyone on this planet who has this so-called “total freedom“?
No – there isn’t.
Yes there are people who have MORE freedoms than others – that is absolutely true, but there’s a HUGE difference between wanting to have more freedoms in your life, and trying to just have “freedom” in general.
Let me explain…
Some Freedoms That I’ve Manifested
Way back in 1996, shortly after graduating from high-school I got a job at a tech company that was located about 45 minutes away from where I lived.
Every morning I would wake up and either drive or car-pool for 45 minutes to get to work. After work, it would take me another 45 minutes to get home.
That was a total of 1.5 hours of driving in traffic, every single morning, 5 days a week.
After a while, I just started to really hate having to deal with spending 1.5 hours every single day in traffic, so one of the FREEDOMS that I decided to pursue in my life was to find some way to NOT have to spend so much time in traffic every day.
Fast forward to 2003, and I was living in a house that was literally less than a block away from my work.
I could walk to work in about 2-3 minutes or roll down the hill in my car and be there in about 30 seconds.
Manifesting this very specific freedom from spending such a big part of my life in traffic was important to me, and so I manifested it.
Today I work from home so I don’t have to even spend one SECOND in traffic on a typical work-day.
Here’s another one of the FREEDOMS that I’ve manifested for myself.
I used to have to wake up to an alarm clock to get to work at a certain time.
For someone like myself, who is a night-owl, waking up early is the equivalent of torture to me, and absolutely hate it.
So about 5 years ago I decided that another one of the freedoms I’d love to manifest was the freedom of NOT having to wake up before 9am.
Today, I have that freedom.
On a typical day I can wake up at 9am, 9;30am, 10:00am or even later – just depending on when I went to sleep the night before.
Most of the people I know who have jobs, they don’t have that specific freedom – because it’s not something they specifically got clear on and pursued.
Specific Freedoms vs Total Freedom
Now you might be wondering, what’s the difference between these two freedoms I mentioned and “total freedom”?
Aren’t the two examples I gave just two examples of having total freedom?
If we pursue total freedom, aren’t we going to get all these other freedoms automatically anyways?
No.
From my experience, when people say that they want total freedom, or the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want, with whomever they want, what they’re really saying is that they don’t know WHAT they want.
They are undecided. They are uncommitted to manifesting ANY kind of freedom.
They are deluding themselves by saying that they want this concept of “total freedom” but in reality they know damn well that they will NEVER achieve such a thing, and so they don’t even bother trying.
You see, the way our minds work is that our minds are AMAZING goal seeking / goal achieving machines.
If you give your mind a SPECIFIC goal to go after that it believes you can achieve, it WILL activate all the faculties of the mind – conscious, subconscious and superconscious – to help you achieve it.
But if you give your mind a VAGUE goal that it DOES NOT it can ever achieve – it will do NOTHING.
This is why I say that chasing total freedom will destroy your life, because by telling your mind you want total freedom, you are essentially setting yourself up to never achieve ANY of the wonderful freedoms that you COULD have in your life.
In other words – the main reason for the lack of specific freedoms in your life that you DO want and that you COULD have already achieved by now is that you’ve been chasing TOTAL FREEDOM – which is a flawed / impossible concept.
Why is Total Freedom Impossible?
Now I know some of you might be thinking that I’m being negative or pessimistic by saying that total freedom is not possible.
Let me explain why I’m simply pointing out the truth.
Let’s say that you tell your mind that you want “Total Freedom”… okay…fine…your mind gets the message and it tries to manifest “total freedom” in your life…
… okay, the next morning you wake up and you have the idea that you’d like to manifest a new car to replace your current car, and you’ve decided that you want that new car to be a BMW.
… okay, so a part of your mind is now being told that what you want is to manifest a specific car – a BMW – yet another part of your mind is still trying to manifest “total freedom”.
Now, think about this for a second… total freedom would mean that you have the freedom to choose to drive ANY car, at ANY time… but if your mind helps you to manifest a BMW, which is ONE type of car, then it’s also going to be cutting you off from the freedom of having a different car – such as for example a Mercedes.
In other words, by helping you manifest ONE car, such as a specific BMW, your mind is also taking away one of your freedoms (the freedom to choose a different car).
Also, if buying the new car means that you’ll be having to make monthly payments for 5 years to pay the car off, that also takes away some of your financial freedom as well, which your mind will not like, so it will fight you on it.
Here’s another example…
Let’s say you want to manifest a wonderful relationship with someone that you can see yourself marrying.
Well, by getting into a relationship with one person and marrying them, you are also cutting yourself away from the “freedom” to marry someone else, right?
No matter how you look at it, every time you gain one type of freedom, you are giving up another type of freedom.
If you manifest the freedom of driving a Ferrari, you are also potentially giving up the freedom of being able to park your car anywhere you want without having to worry about someone stealing it.
I mean if right now you drive a piece of crap car, one of the freedoms you DO have that a Ferrari owner doesn’t have is the freedom of not really worrying about someone stealing the car. 🙂
Let’s say you decide to join a gym and work out every day because you want to have a buff body…okay, but isn’t that giving up the freedom to NOT go to the gym and instead to just sit and watch TV?
See, every freedom we manifest and gain in our lives, carries with it some other freedom that we are giving up.
This is why “Total Freedom” is IMPOSSIBLE.
There’s always a trade off. You give up one freedom to gain another.
What’s Exciting About This
Now at first you might be thinking that the realization that you’ll never achieve “total freedom” as a human being on this earth sounds a bit depressing…
…but in reality it’s actually VERY LIBERATING and exciting… here’s why.
See, the second you realize that chasing “total freedom” is MENTAL TRAP that paralyzes your mind and accomplishes NOTHING, you can begin to ask yourself which FREEDOMS are important to YOU (not someone else) and activate your mind to help you achieve those specific freedoms.
You see, a mind that is instructed to go out and create very specific freedoms in your life that are important to YOU is a very powerful mind.
But a mind that is just generally told to pursue “freedom” as a whole concept is a very weak mind.
You MUST get specific with the freedoms that you want.
Here’s a quick exercise you can follow to help you gain some clarity on this:
- Write Down a List of Freedoms – Get a pen and paper and write down a list of very specific freedoms that you’d like to manifest in your life. Be specific. The more specific you get, the better it will be. Instead of writing down “I want the freedom to always wake up whenever I want.” it’s better to say “I want the freedom to sleep in until at least 9am most days”. Instead of writing down “I want to never worry about money ever again.” it’s better to write down “I want the freedom of having at least $25,000 cash in my emergency fund, and a net worth of at least $5 million dollars.”Concepts like “Never have to worry about money again” are too generic, too hypothetical, too confusing as to what you really mean by it. I mean are you asking your mind to help you manifest a specific amount of money, or are you asking your mind to figure out a way to get you to stop worrying about money? I mean technically speaking, your could get into a car accident and hit your head and go into a coma and never wake up and never have to worry about ANYTHING ever again, right? But is that what you want? Probably not right? So you have to be specific.Try to start with some simple freedoms that are more easily believable and achievable for your mind.
- Prioritize Your List of Freedoms – Next what you’ll want to do is to go through your list and get clear on which freedoms are most important to you right now in your life. You’ll want to give priority to the most important things, but also to the things that are most easily achievable as well which can take you towards more important freedoms.For example, before I manifested the freedom to not spend ANY time in traffic (by working from home), I manifested the freedom to NOT spend 45 minutes in traffic, instead cutting that down to about 25 mins in traffic (by changing jobs), followed by manifesting the freedom to only spend about 1-2 minutes getting to work (by buying a house literally a block away from my office), to finally manifesting the ability to work from home full time.The idea here is not to necessarily pick which specific freedom you’re going to focus on first, but more to just help you gain more clarity as to which freedoms mean more to you than others, and which freedoms might be more achievable more quickly.
- Track and Recognize Your Current Freedoms – Another important aspect to this process is to become aware of the freedoms you have already manifested in your life and to express a feeling of gratitude towards them. The truth is that most of us have SO MANY more freedoms than others on this planet, but we take those freedoms for granted and never feel any gratitude for them.For example, do you have a drivers license? Do you drive a car? Can you get into your car and drive somewhere if you wanted to? Then that is a freedom you manifested already in your life that other people may not have. They might not have a driver’s license or a car, and might be stuck taking the bus everywhere. See my point?You already have MANY freedoms right now, that other people may not have. That doesn’t mean you should feel bad for other people who don’t have the same freedoms you have. That is not the point. The point here is to simply become aware of the fact that you’ve already manifested a whole bunch of freedoms in your life, and if you did it for THOSE freedoms, then your belief will go up that you can manifest the NEW freedoms your currently working on.
Don’t underestimate the power of this key distinction between trying to manifest FREEDOM vs trying to manifest SPECIFIC FREEDOMS.
Trying to manifest FREEDOM is a fools errand…
… you’ll never manifest TRUE FREEDOM as a human being…it’s impossible, and that’s not why we are here on this planet.
We are here to DECIDE and CHOOSE which SPECIFIC FREEDOMS are most important to us and then to pursue manifesting those freedoms and then to enjoy them!
I remember the day when I stopped chasing FREEDOM as a whole, and realized that I’ve been trying to manifest this massive, impossible fantasy…
… it felt like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders…
… not having to pursue this concept of FREEDOM anymore…
… and instead to just pick specific freedoms that are important to me now, in my current life, and in comparison to ‘Total Freedom” , those individual, specific freedoms seem so much more achievable and believable!
NOT chasing FREEDOM is one of the most freeing and liberating experiences you will ever experience in your life.
Try it out…you’ll see what I mean.
Give yourself permission, right now, to STOP chasing this stupid illusion of “total freedom” that NOBODY in the history of humanity has ever achieved.
You’ll see how liberating and fun it is to instead decide which freedoms you want to go after and to then go after and achieve those freedoms!