Not many doctors conduct freedom tests on their patients during clinical history taking. They check blood pressure, heart rate, weight and height, cholesterol and triglyceride levels and sometimes body composition, but almost never ask patients about how their liberty is going or if they feel free enough. In his classic work How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World (Avon, 1973), Harry Browne’s first sentence was, Freedom is the opportunity to live your life as you want to live it. That sentence set me on my path to wellness.
Maybe doctors SHOULD do freedom checkups on patients. If not physicians, somebody. Does it not seem as important to a person’s well being as weight and height, and other traditional measures of health that doctors explore in standard examinations? I think so, mainly because I believe freedom is a vital element of mental and emotional health, as well.
Freedom is a genuine power word with many connotations and a lot of historical power and baggage. It is a rallying cry for saints and scoundrels alike. It has been the watchword for many revolutions, barbaric and totalitarian as well as democratic and enlightening. Mention the word freedom in a speech or comment and most will nod assent, but nearly everyone will be innocent of clues as to what in blazes you’re specifically referring to. Freedom to do what, when, where and under which conditions? Freedom is more complicated than it sounds.
Yet, most in Western societies (unlike in Islamic theocratic nations) seem to regard freedom highly. Hegel saw the history of the world as a record of humanity’s progress toward (or retreat from) freedom. Webster’s ninth suggests that freedom is a quality or state of being free, a political right, a franchise, a privilege. Further, and this is where the link with a REAL wellness lifestyle becomes apparent, freedom is a sense of not being unduly hampered or frustrated.
A key to optimal health and an ability to enjoy the best life offers in a freedom-based democracy is a vigilance to safeguard mental and emotional freedoms. At least two health benefits will come from exercising such freedoms.
The first is less stress, thereby adding to your chances for personal mastery and a choice-friendly existence. You will have less stress in part by being more tolerant of people, viewpoints and differences. You need not worry so much if others approve of the way you dress, how you look, what you say and with whom you associate. You won’t feel a need to reform others, change the world, right every wrong (choose carefully the wrongs you plan to right) and vanquish every foe. The second health benefit is that you’re likely to be a more effective and happy person. You will more often get what you want and less frequently feel angered that people are so screwed up, evil, stupid and daft (even though all of these suspicions may be reasonable on occasions).
Consider what the 19th century’s greatest orator and leading advocate for freedom said on the subject well over a century ago – this is from an 1896 speech entitled Why I Am An Agnostic:
DBA Robert Ingersoll, NWC 2010 Don as Ingersoll
When I became convinced that the universe is natural-that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world-not even in infinite space.
I was free – free to think, to express my thoughts-free to live to my own ideal-free to use all my faculties, all my senses-free to spread imagination’s wings-free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope-free to judge and determine for myself-free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the ‘inspired’ books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past-free from popes and priests-free from all the called and set apart – free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies-free from the fear of eternal pain-free from the winged monsters of the night-free from devils, ghosts, and gods.
For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought-no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings-no chains for my limbs-no lashes for my back-no fires for my flesh-no master’s frown or threat-no following another’s steps-no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain-for the freedom of labor and thought-to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs-to those whose flesh was scarred and torn-to those by fire consumed-to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.
These are a few reasons why freedom (i.e., liberty), the L in REAL wellness, has such a central place in the quest for a high quality of life. Where do you stand? Do you see freedom topics as big for wellness seekers of optimal well being, maximum satisfaction and meaning? Do you think Ingersoll’s words above ring true today?
Don Ardell
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