At a young age, I was already obsessed with the idea of freedom. Back in my college days, I took much more classes than recommended because I wanted to finish my 5-year course in just 4.5 years. The reason was I wanted to play DOTA (a popular video game in the late 2000s).

When I started earning my own money, my desire for financial freedom rose. This was what attracted me to pursue my own business and start PinoyMoneyAcademy. Interestingly enough, freedom was also the reason why I closed it and pursued another business.

It was much later in life that I realized freedom is actually a very deep topic that spans beyond time, or financial. In this post, I share my understanding of freedom in all its forms and its effect on various life areas.

The Definition of Freedom

Freedom is the absence of limitation. Without the idea of limitations, there can also be no freedom.

If a person desires freedom, it also means that person acknowledges limitation. Here we introduce the ideas of the different kinds of freedom normally pursued by man:

  • Financial freedom is pursued by those who experience financial constraints.
  • Time freedom is pursued by those who are busy and feel there is not enough time to experience life.
  • Social freedom is pursued by those who are pressured by the judgement of others.
  • Physical freedom is pursued by those whose physical bodies are imprisoned by a captor or illness.
  • Emotional freedom is pursued by those who are trapped in their negative thoughts and emotions.
  • Intellectual freedom is pursued by those who are unable to express their inner creativity.
  • Spiritual freedom is pursued by those who are searching for a deeper connection to life.

The list goes on and on. For each human desire, there is an equivalent type of freedom for it.

What eluded me for a long time however, was that true freedom in any area can never be achieved. This goes back to the definition of freedom which is the absence of limitations.

Because simply by trying to remove limitations, we are setting limitations. Take for instance financial freedom.

Let’s say a person is earning $10,000 a month by simply working 4 hours a week. To the majority this is already financial freedom. This is because the majority are earning less than $10,000 a month and working more than 4 hours a week.

But for someone who wants to earn $100,000 a month while working 2 hours a week… then the above example is a limitation.

This is but one illustration that true freedom will never exist.

Instead, we can only seek to expand freedom, or lessen limitations.

The key then is to define up to what level of freedom we are pursuing, and which limitations in life we will happily accept. This is the meaning of expanding freedom.

The 3 Stages of Expanding Freedom

Knowing that freedom can only ever be expanded, there are now 3 stages by which this happens.

  • The first stage is the acknowledgement of limitation with the desire to remove it.
  • The second is the process of removing the limitation.
  • The third is the experience of having moved the limitation.

The cycle will then repeat, because the experience of having less limitations, becomes the new limitation that fuels a new desire to expand freedom again.

Let us now go to Physical Freedom as an example.

As I am writing this I have a neck strain. My every time I look down, I feel my left neck muscles tighten. This is an acknowledgement of the limitation.

The feeling is uncomfortable. Sometimes it is painful when I suddenly look to the right or when I’m playing with my kids. Thus I desire this physical limitation to go away.

However, the desire itself is limited. I don’t feel the need to see a doctor or a physiotherapist. I also don’t have enough desire to do neck exercises religiously. As such I remain in stage 1 of the expansion of freedom.

Now if the pain gets uncomfortable enough, then I might actually do something real about it. The 10 minute neck exercises, better posture while working, buying a monitor so I’m not always looking down at my laptop… This process doing something about the limitation is the second stage of expanding freedom.

Lastly, when all the exercises have worked, and the neck pain is gone, then I am now physically free from the neck pain! I get to experience freely moving my head around whichever way I please. I am now at the 3rd stage of expanding freedom which is getting to experience it.

At this point, I may stop doing the neck exercises for there is no need to. I may also end up slouching again, or not pay attention to my posture while working. Afterall, the need for doing those things has disappeared. This may cause the neck pain to start again putting me back at stage 1.

Of course this is not the ideal scenario, but is a real possibility. That by having experienced a pain-free neck, makes me want to continue having a pain-free neck. Therefore I am now ‘forced’ to continue doing these exercises and pay attention to my posture more. In a way, my removal of the limitation simply created a new one.

The only way I can progress then is to find a new limitation where having a healthy neck is the requirement. This could be say to conquer a Spartan Sprint race (which is a 7km run with around 15 obstacles of lifting heavy things, climbing and other athletic requirements). To do this, I’d have to expand and remove more physical limitations like having ‘weak or untrained’ muscles in addition to having a healthy neck.

Thus, I’m able to expand my physical freedom continuously.

When Does It End?

This is the true question. When does our desire to expand freedom end?

I think it never ends.

Technically it ends when who we are and who we want to be are the same.

This is why the image for this post represents the purple swirl expanding and exploring, until it reaches a state of no limitations and a life full of color. But after experiencing all of that, it realizes it simply wants to enjoy life similar to its past. It no longer sees limitations, instead only choices.

The journey though is important…when we become who we want to be, that is an entirely new person who will likely have a different answer to ‘who do you want to be?’ It can become an endless pursuit.

And because of this, this is what I think life is truly about. It is simply a series of quests that we get to celebrate and enjoy as we expand freedom in various life areas and as we make different choices.

Thankfully we have family to celebrate and experience it with. And we’ve got good food in the world that fuels us in our daily life.

This is why my theme in this site is to simply document how I’m celebrating family, expanding freedom and enjoying the food.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this one!