From what do you wish to be free?

In honor of Independence day I feel like sharing a small anecdote.

During my life I have spent much time around children, sometimes I was caring for those labeled as neglected, or troubled– coming from “difficult circumstances”, but in truth many of those children were still bright, alive and filled with hope, maybe bruised, but bouncing back. In fact across the years I think the child I felt the worst for, the one for whom my heart hurt, was a boy who did not feel free enough to use his own imagination. This 2 year old boy appeared to live a perfectly “privileged” life, and yet couldn’t play a single game of pretend. When we sang “the wheels on the bus” (that silly, often annoyingly memorable song) I would ask him and his classmates ”where they wanted the bus to go?” then we would imagine driving there, not only would he refuse to play, but he insisted on informing everyone that “we weren’t REALLY going anywhere so there was no point in the game” (he also told them that if they were bad they were going in “the box”…but no matter, just a note to all parents that nothing they do behind close doors stays there).

My point being that to me our ability to be free mentally, to envision how we wish reality to be, to escape the confines of what another or others dictate as truth. That is our greatest freedom. Put any of us in a physical box and we can imagine ourselves out of it, but take away our belief in our ability to escape, indoctrinate us to build that box mentally, even when none exists physically, and then we are truly trapped.

So I ask you once again by what do you feel bound and propose that you at least can take this first most crucial step of being free, that step one no one else has dominion over.

Oh and for the record— you can REALLY go anywhere you want to go.