How To Find Freedom in Life

If I had to name my core value, it would be freedom. Freedom is the thing that I love the most, and that guides all of my decisions.

But what does that actually mean — "freedom?" And how do you go about achieving it?

Let's find out.

I.

When most people think of freedom, they think of the right to express their opinions or the right to vote.

The underlying assumption — freedom is something baked into the political system. A society is either free or unfree. And as a result, its people are either free or unfree.

That is at best half-true.

I have spent quite a bit of time in non-democratic societies (Egypt, Russia, Vietnam). And I have met plenty of people there who were extremely free. Vice versa, I have met plenty of people in the West who were as unfree as it gets.

II.

Looking to the "system" to give you freedom never works.

Yes, you can start a movement and organize protest marches. But these movements rarely succeed. And even if they do, they don't. In the end, your great idea will get turned on its head.

Understand — the only person who can give you freedom is yourself.

If you don't like your 9 to 5, quit your job and start your own business.

If you don't like how you get treated by a certain person, find a better person.

If you don't like how they tax you in a certain country, move to a different country.

This is the key to freedom — radical self-responsibility. Never look to outside entities for salvation. Only look to yourself.

III.

There is not just one type of freedom. There are many types of freedom:

Financial freedom: The freedom to pay for your life without having to do work that you despise.

Geographical freedom: The freedom to roam the planet freely. You are not bound to a certain location.

Sexual freedom: The freedom from social contracts like monogamy or marriage. Nobody is telling you whom you can sleep with.

Freedom of time: The freedom to spend your time as you see fit. If you want to go surfing, you grab a board. If you feel like reading, you grab a book.

Freedom of passion: The freedom to follow what excites you. If you are crazy about inventing fantasy board games, that’s what you will do.

Emotional freedom: The freedom to emotionally detach yourself from negative influences. Your spouse, your boss, the world news — nothing can shake you.

Intellectual freedom: The freedom to explore new ideas, however controversial. You are not restricted in your thinking by any kind of ideology.

Spiritual freedom: The freedom to exit your beehive-like mind. When you desire, you can enter a state of pure being.

IV.

You must prioritize. You must decide which types of freedom are the most important to you. In my experience, you can realistically realize 1–3 of them, and that is if you are very hard-working. The average person never realizes even one.

This is a message that most freedom seekers don't want to hear. They don't want to choose — they want it all.

But this is not how it works. Ironically, to become free in some areas of your life, you must be okay with being unfree in others. The sooner you wrap your head around this, the sooner you will start making progress. But if you cling to your belief that, "I should have it all," you will never be free. You will just keep dreaming about freedom.

V.

Freedom requires discipline.

If you want to escape your miserable 9-to-5 life, you will first have to become more miserable. For 3–5 years, you must work like a machine. No weekends, no friends, no dating, no vacations, etc. It will be hell. But when you emerge on the other side, you will have built that deeply satisfying passion business.

I'll give you another example. When I first became interested in sexual freedom, I realized that I needed to talk to lots of strangers. I had to find the few attractive outliers that felt like me. So, every day for several years, I left the house to talk to 10 strangers.

Was that fun? No. I talked to well over 10,000 romantic prospects in my life and got rejected by most of them. It was actually quite painful at times.

But in the end, it also gave me what I desired. I dated people who were not just exceptionally attractive, but who also wanted to love freely, without contracts. Some of the best memories of my life came from that.

I repeat — freedom requires discipline. Whatever type of freedom you aspire to, you must take consistent action. You must put the hours in, year after year. Eventually, it will pay off. You will experience a level of joy that most people cannot even imagine.

On a side note, it will be interesting to see how the relationship between freedom and technology will evolve. We have become so dependent on these large tech companies that there is bound to be abuse. But again — the only solution is to prepare yourself for it.

Until next week,

Niels