I used to think that being in America I would have the freedom to do what I want -but now I realize that’s not the case. For people that relay on their jobs to keep the bills paid not only is their less time for them to do what they want, but in some cases they are also censored. Women that want to go braless for health reasons sometimes can’t if they’re afraid their jobs won’t allow it. People can’t say what they really think for fear of being fired.
Now that I’ve found a 9 to 5 job, at first I thought this is it, this is where I want to be. However, after reviewing everything I’ve experienced I realized that it’s just not. I want the freedom to write whenever I please, run whenever its nice out, and spend time with my family without my job limiting my time with them. And now I’ve realized that freedom doesn’t come free -even if you live in America. People have made their own way, making passive income, learning how to earn money without really working.
Do I think it would be bad if everyone lived this way? No, in fact I think the more people that do it the more we can become even more independent and we’d have more freedom because there won’t be other people demanding that we do stuff for them. We’ve found ways that have made modern living even easier for us to do on our own than ever before. And if all of us managed to find a way to make passive income for us to take care of ourselves, I still don’t think all of us would quit our jobs. We would probably just work less.
If all of us found a way to take care of ourselves without really doing much there would still be plenty of time to ‘work’. I don’t think everyone is lazy and even when I have my lazy days if I’m lazy for too long I kind of get twitchy and end up wanting to do something.
I think having the freedom to get away from big companies and become on our boss might even help us find new ideas too. Most jobs from my experience end up being pretty repetitive and I think allowing ourselves the freedom to face new experiences can help us to think differently.
As I refine my idea of what freedom really is I’m beginning to get a stronger pull to do my own thing -and hopefully get benefits from that. And I’d feel guilty if I ended up doing this and realized that other people still haven’t caught on. Having a job was a constant pressure that my parents always lectured me about. I’ve found that just because someone is ‘jobless’ that does not mean they are an unproductive lazy person. In fact, I think people that are productive without a ‘job’ are even more motivated than people with jobs because they don’t have to have the constant pressure from other people to encourage them to continue working. They just do what they want to do without anyone telling them otherwise.
That I believe is true freedom, and I hope to get closer and closer to it as life goes on.
What do you define freedom as? Do you think it has to be earned or do you think we all have the right to it?
This rings a loud bell to me because I have found myself in the similar shoe. You can look at it from two different perspectives – first, why are you in a 9 to 5 job? Does it go with your philosophy of stability, responsibility and everything? Are you satisfied? If not, what’s stopping you from leaving it – is it the skills or is it parental pressure or familial responsibilities that’s too high of a stake. When you break down a problem to its absolute fundamental pieces, a lot of things would clearer and also help you in taking conscious decision.
Secondly, how serious are you towards the alternative? Remember, grass is always greener on the other side. Do you think things would have been easier if you could find a remote job which you can do online? What actually you want to do? Do you want to travel or do you want to stay home and spend time with family? Or do you want to just live alone at one place and not get bothered about all the other things?
What is freedom to you? If you weren’t put in any constraint, what would you have done? Tell me.