In the past few days, I have been consciously or unconsciously looking at the election posters on the roadside as I drive by. One term keeps popping into my view: freedom.
What I ask myself is: “Do you believe that freedom is something that has to come from outside? Something that politics should give us?”
He who asks, leads. This is an old wisdom that works wonderfully. When asking the question, I soon receive an answer. The answer comes to me in an audiobook during my drive. The author, Russ Harris, talks about Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned in a concentration camp for a long time and wrote, among other things, the bestseller “Man’s Search for Meaning”. He said:
“You can take everything from a man. But not the choice of his own attitude.”
This sentence directly answers my question. My own attitude or, as I would say, my choice of “glasses,” determines my freedom or my limitation. And how is this “own attitude” formed? It is based on the values that are important to me in life. Could it be that a person is successful and thus free the moment they act and live according to their own values?
Ralph Waldo Emerson adds to this: “All successful men agree on one thing: they are causationists.” In other words, they see themselves as the cause and not the effect of what happens in their lives. They have recognized that they themselves cause the effects (results) through their own view of these results. It is about taking full responsibility for your own thinking and actions instead of parroting what others see as truth. Emerson goes on: “As soon as you say, ‘I have created this,’ you make it your own. You take sole responsibility. If you take responsibility for creating a situation, you are also ready to take responsibility for changing that situation. And if you take responsibility for change, you take control of your life.”
So, I would say… no further questions, Your Honor.
With these thoughts, I wish you a fantastic week filled with joy and freedom.
