Let's close our eyes.
One of my favorite words is freedom.
Just listening to that word creates expansion within me.
The context of this word is related to everyday life.
Without making this patriotic or political in any way,
I want to explore this word pertaining to me,
To you,
In everyday life.
Very often,
We are reminded of the freedom that we have in our life,
Explicitly.
Whenever you go to ask something to someone and they might say,
Oh yeah,
It's a free country,
You can say whatever you want,
You can do whatever you want.
And I don't want to explore this word in the context of the generic definition either,
Namely doing whatever we want to,
Saying whatever we want to.
We all know what it means,
What it looks like.
I want to restrict this exploration at the level of the heart,
Which is where it matters the most.
If I feel free in my heart,
Everything else is immaterial.
That's how powerful this experience of freedom is,
At least for me.
In everyday life,
Our days seem to be constrained by rules.
I don't mean rules that are necessary for our safety and other people's safety,
But rules that don't make sense,
That haven't been explored.
Or what is expected out of us,
Or what we think is expected out of us,
In terms of our behavior.
Or how we perceive,
Wherever we are,
As a place where we are free,
Or as a place where we are captives.
Let's go in the reverse order.
One of the most popular areas for this captivity is our workplace.
The way we talk about it explains a lot about how fundamentally we feel about where we are.
Back to the grind.
Oh,
They don't want me to do this.
They don't want me to do that.
They want me to do this.
They make us come back to office,
Etc.
Etc.
There is always this they who seems to be ruling our work life.
I'm not allowed to.
And I've heard this so many times from younger team members to experienced and veterans.
But I've never experienced something like that.
Where someone is making me do something.
After all,
It's a free country.
Then what are we missing?
If two people don't feel exactly the same way about the same place,
Then maybe it's a perspective that matters.
And I don't want to force my perspective onto you.
The same freedom that I experience at work is the same freedom I experience right now doing this.
It's how we view ourselves.
Wherever we are.
And we all know how freedom feels like when we are in our own room,
In our own house.
We are carefree,
Like a free bird.
Regardless of what we are wearing,
How we look.
Whether we are dancing or singing,
It doesn't matter.
We experience those fleeting moments of freedom.
Carefree.
Very regularly.
And my assertion is that we are wrongly attributing it to the geography instead of our attitude.
When I say the word home,
It feels like a safe place.
That's what we have attributed inside out to that geography.
But the way we speak about our work,
Workplace,
I'm not saying all of us do that.
But we make it sound like a prison where someone is making us do something.
Even within our own home,
We follow rules.
We have tasks,
We have chores,
We have duties.
But why?
Why is workplace different?
That's one place where we spend such a big chunk of our time.
Even if we are working from home,
It's not a physical place I'm talking about.
It's that place in our mind that we think we are in while we are at work.
And that's a key insight here.
Work is not a physical or virtual space.
It's a space in our mind that we think we are in while at work.
And home is a place in our mind that we think we are at home.
The moment we are in,
Either of them,
We behave,
We feel accordingly.
And freedom is not about dancing at work.
It's not about shouting,
Yelling,
Being mean,
Being rude.
No.
It's about that feeling of being at home.
Safe.
Where nobody is here to get you,
To bring you down,
To tear you apart,
To humiliate you,
To find your flaws and exhibit them.
If any of this is true,
Actually true in our lives,
Then it is a free country and we need to think hard about where we are.
But if your heart and your intelligence is telling you that maybe 80%,
90% of the time it is a pretty safe place to be,
Then why aren't I feeling like that of being at home?
And how can I feel at home?
How can I look at this place I am in,
In my mind,
And see for what it is?
A place that is safe.
From an actual,
Literal meaning of being safe,
Where I can let my guards down.
I don't have to protect myself.
Not all places might fit this description.
But if we are able to find time to sit down and contemplate,
Maybe we do have this luxury of feeling safe.
And we need to exercise our freedom.
That's the freedom I was talking about.
Freedom to be free.
And freedom,
This freedom,
Is not tied to your job description.
You don't need authority to feel free.
We all can be equally stuck at any level of the quote-unquote corporate ladder.
Or we could feel free,
Even being an intern.
I can't tell you how to feel free,
Because you already know it.
You've already tasted it so many times in your own home.
Maybe all by yourself,
Maybe with your family and friends.
And most parts of the world,
Of this country,
We can feel that.
No matter what we are exposed to in terms of news,
The world is much safer than what it seems to be.
That is what allows us to explore the truth by closing our eyes,
By going within.
It's a luxury that only safe societies can experience.
And the same exploration applies to different areas of our life,
Where we feel stuck.
We don't feel at home.
Sometimes,
Freedom requires courage to call a spade a spade.
And courage can only blossom in freedom,
Not the freedom that is available externally.
Courage is the freedom.
Courage blossoms in the freedom internally.
But most of the times,
Freedom requires wisdom,
Wisdom of seeing things as they are,
And aligning our life,
Our thoughts,
Our behaviors according to that wisdom.
And once you taste it,
And I speak from my own experience,
Once you taste this freedom,
Which is intentional,
You can never go back.
And you don't need to feel this everywhere.
You just have to feel it in one place,
In one area of your life.
And suddenly,
Everything else changes,
As if,
So to speak,
You have tasted blood.
Thank you.
