You Can't Buy Freedom, But You Can Grow It!

By Mrs. Canadian Renegade

@sagescrub asked What Freedom Means to You and that challenged me to revisit what we want for our future and put it into words.

But before I share with you what freedom means to our family, I want to to give you some background. Recognizing where my freedoms were hindered ultimately helped me identify what freedom means to my family.

 
I can recall a point in time when my life once ran on auto-pilot. Picture this: the alarm clock sounds, I roll out of bed, stagger to the shower, put myself together, grab a bite of breakfast and head out the door. I wade through the same daily traffic jam, show up to the same building, perform the same tasks, and grind my teeth until the time to punch out arrives.

After fighting my way through yet another traffic jam on the way home, I cook up a meal (or pour a mean bowl of cereal), then unwind in front of the television, before putting myself to bed, just to do it all over again the next day. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

At first, this lifestyle teased me with the prospect of freedom. When that first pay cheque landed at my fingertips my mind began to imagine all the freedoms I might buy; a car, where I'd be free to drive where I wanted, a house, where I'd be free to do as I pleased, a credit card where I'd be free to spend as I desired, and the list goes on. I could acquire so many freedoms with money that I might have completely missed the chains that shackled me in the process.

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash*

Eventually, each morning I would stare at myself in the mirror and wonder why freedom felt so unbearable. Like rust on a car, these freedoms began to eat away at my life and rob me of the joy I deeply sought. I was tethered to debt and a job I despised, and I was still convinced that freedom was just around the corner. If I just worked harder, thought longer, or made another sacrifice I would finally reach that illustrious state of happiness. I became so focused on pleasing others that I neglected my own joy and unknowingly discarded my freedom in the process.

Matthew began to remind me that I needed to serve no one but myself. After all, if each day revolved around serving everyone else, I was more akin to being a slave than anything else. Our conversations had become laced with my unhappiness and, as a result, tension began to build in our relationship. One day Matthew posed a giant what if. What if I just quit? Each day I seemed to be suffering more than the last, and for what?

I had become so focused on staying employed so I could buy my way to freedom, but what if that path to freedom was just an illusion? Did I really want to waste my life running the rat race just to discover the freedom I was searching for at the finish line didn't exist, only to be met with the sweet release of death instead? The next day, I handed in my resignation.

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Now what? Simply not working was not an option. But now I was free to find work I was passionate about, and clients I enjoyed. If I didn't enjoy the work I found, I was free to move on to the next project or next client. I was free to wake up when I chose, I was free to work from home and I was free to wear my pajamas while doing it. These small victories began to paint a picture of what freedom meant in my life.

As time went on that picture grew clearer. Matthew and I genuinely enjoy being in each others company. At one point, we would wake up together, work side-by-side in our home office, eat lunch and dinner together, unwind together, and go to bed together. Somehow, we never got sick of one another.

Eventually, Matthew would return to a job outside the home to help fast track our dream of owning our own piece of paradise. But doing so kept him shackled to the daily grind. Each day he would leave for work, I would find myself counting the hours until his return.

Our piece of paradise where we plan to build a forever home and raise a family.

I began to wonder, If working for someone else was an illusion of freedom, what other illusions did we fall prey to? And so our picture of freedom grew clearer. Freedom to our family meant not only being together, but providing for ourselves, and removing ourselves from being under the thumb of anyone else.

We want to be free to choose what we eat and how we eat it. We want to be free from the constraints of an employer. We want to be free to focus on what we are passionate about in life, unlocking our shackle of bills. We want our children to be free to to form their own thoughts unbound by a rigid education system.

This awareness spurred us to set goals and work towards our independence, our freedom and to recognize that this is a life long journey we are excited to travel.