Philosophers, of many kinds, have been talking about freedom and responsibility for years. Irvin Yalom, an existential psychiatrist, talked about how freedom is one of the givens (or basic elements) in our life. You are placed in life with the ability to choose. Additionally, you are free to choose how to view your life experiences. You are even free to choose to believe that you are not a significant player in your own destiny. We can allow others to make choices for us, whether knowingly or unknowingly, but that is still a choice. On the other side of the spectrum, this means that you are also free to be a visionary creator in your life. The meaningful life can be within your grasp.
Overall, we are free to choose, but we are also responsible for our choices. No one else is to blame for how we choose to live our lives.
So what? So what does this actually mean? If you are dissatisfied in your career, who is choosing to be there? Of course there are plenty of reasons why you feel you need to stay. Perhaps you need to provide for your family. Perhaps there were circumstances outside of your control that led to your circumstance (i.e. death, job loss, disability, etc.). Perhaps you will literally starve if you quit your job. But no matter the circumstances, what are you doing to move towards a more satisfying career? Are you choosing to go with the dissatisfying status quo? How you choose to respond to life is your opportunity and responsibility. You do not have to bow down to circumstance. In many cases we really do choose how satisfied we are in a career and in life in general because only we can choose how we view our life and career.
Some might be saying, “No way, Kirk! If you really new what I have been through how could you say that I am free to choose?! How am I free to choose to view my life more constructively when horrible things have been done to me?” These are difficult questions. Atrocities occur. Murder, theft, sexual assault, and discrimination are some examples. These experiences are real. I still continue to believe that we must embrace our freedom and responsibility of choice in these circumstances. Maybe even especially in these circumstances. Perhaps a brief story might help examine this foundational difficulty.
Victor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who was sent to Nazi concentration camps during WWII. He described his experiences in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. He explored how choosing how to view one’s lot in life applied to concentration camp life in important ways. He explained that prisoners needed to find a meaning, even in their atrocities. He noticed that those who were unable to find meaning in their suffering, soon passed away. He writes, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” He referred to this as pan-determinism. What he means by pan-determinism is many elements of life are determined. We do not choose who we are born to, disabilities that we might have, our genetic makeup, our ethnicity, etc. But even as some circumstances are outside of our control, we always have the control to choose to respond to the uncontrollable in life as we see fit.
This perspective really matters. It means that life circumstance is not the final judge. You are. You have an inner freedom that no one can take away. You can give it away, but it cannot be taken. Finding a deep and lasting sense of purpose requires you to consider the topics of freedom and responsibility seriously. Deeply reflecting on how these topics relate to your life meaning, purpose, and direction is absolutely essential to a purpose filled life.
In conclusion, I hope you see that we really do have a lot more power than we might initially think. The ability that we have been given as humans to choose, places us in a position that requires us to, in the end, accept personal responsibility for our life situation. Yes, forces bigger than you will influence you, but I do not believe that they control you at a core level. If you choose to believe you are controlled, then you will be. You will lose the first essential battle in moving towards purpose. You will give up on the possibility of living a life of purpose because there is no way to live purposefully if you do not 1) make your choices and 2) accept responsibility for them.
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