Are you using your freedom(s) in a meaningful way?
What kind of negative and positive freedom do you have?
Our career aspirations are often about acquiring some type of freedom.
For example, we leave our jobs to become self-employed so that we can, finally, have ultimate freedom over our time.
Or, we climb the corporate ladder so we can have more financial freedom.
Or, we start our own businesses to have the freedom to choose how we produce and sell things.
Freedom is a currency we seek to acquire, but do we use it efficiently?
The British-Russian philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin was known for an essay he published in the late 1950s, where he introduced two concepts of liberty: negative and positive liberty. Negative liberty meant freedom from something, whereas positive liberty meant freedom to something.
Though Berlin’s theory mainly concerned societal and political liberalism, it’s also worth studying on a more personal level.
In practice, the pursuit of negative liberty is what makes us break free from oppressive structures, bad contracts or limiting rules. It allows for things like freedom of speech or freedom of movement. Having negative freedom means we have “permission” to do something. It’s about creating space for individual choice.
We might resign from our job because it restricts our talent. We are now free to do what we want.
But, the next question is, what do we want?
This is where positive liberty comes in. It means giving purpose to the freedom we’ve acquired, and gathering the resources to take action and choose our direction.
Positive liberty is not just about technically having the freedom to do anthing, it’s about actively using our freedom to increase our life satisfaction.
Whereas negative freedom is about the absence of something, positive freedom is about the presence of something.
In many Western societies, we have many types of freedoms to choose our life’s path. However, we don’t always exercise this freedom wisely or even recognise we have it.
Instead, we might “waste” our freedom becoming addicted to substances, social media or workaholism, in which case we aren’t really free anymore – our addictions control us.
One could argue that, as members of society, we’re never really free to begin with because we’re constrained and influenced by societal rules. That’s a relevant point and requires its own essay, so let’s leave it for another day.
For now, let’s stay with Berlin’s two concepts of freedom to understand how we could truly use and feel the freedom we have in our careers and life paths.
Taking ownership of our freedom can be hard – but rewarding
In its essence, Berlin’s theory seeks to understand how much freedom we should be given and how responsible we will be with it. This is a collective question but also an individualist question.
If we dream about liberating ourselves from whatever seems constraining, be it a bad boss or Instagram, how will we claim the space that we’re left with?
Dreaming of freedom is easy, but practising it is hard.
This is why many of us stay in unsatisfying jobs because we’re too afraid to take full responsibility for our next step. What if we can’t find anything better? What if the grass isn’t that green on the other side?
It can be easier to blame someone else for the lack of purpose in our jobs than to actually build a career that feels purposeful.
Freedom to do something meaningful to us requires skill.
We need to know who we are, what we want, what gives us a sense of purpose, what we’re good at and where we want to be in life. None of this work is easy or fast.
However, claiming our freedom to become the masters of our lives can be highly satisfying if we’re willing to do the work and commit to the choices we deem important.
Freedom = a life that feels chosen
Freedom has no intrinsic value, and staying in a limbo where we keep all doors open in life is hardly ever very satisfying.
For example, if we leave our jobs and become self-employed, we’ll get the freedom to work whenever we want. But that time has no value in itself.
Freedom to work whenever we want only becomes meaningful after we start using that leftover time to our benefit.
Maybe what we really want is to finish work at 3 pm so we can attend swimming classes. Or, maybe we want to take our kids to school in the morning. Or, maybe we’d like to work only three days a week so we can do f*ck all for the rest of the week.
It’s not ultimate, abstract freedom we want. We want outcomes that align with our values.
Freedom = productive restrictions
Berlin realised that giving people ultimate freedom would always have some downsides. Even something as noble as freedom of speech would result in some people saying offensive things about others, creating friction between people and groups.
(This is why being a politician is hard.)
On a personal level, I believe we want some restrictions, just as long as those restrictions mean something to us.
For example, we may choose to become vegans even if it limits our choices at the supermarket because veganism makes us feel like we’re standing up for something important to us.
Or, if we look at that person who quit their job to become their own boss so they could finish every day at 3 pm to attend swimming classes, we’ll find that their days are filled with restrictions.
Maybe they have to get up really early because that’s when they’re most productive. Or, they don’t allow themselves to look at their phone all day so that they won’t get distracted. Or they are limited to certain types of jobs that earn a very high hourly rate so they can work fewer hours.
Exercising our freedom comes with a set of responsibilities. And responsibilities always entail some level of self-limiting behaviour.
Three questions to ask yourself to use your freedom wisely
What have you broken free from in your life? How did that make you feel?
What have you chosen to use that freedom for?
What type of freedoms do you take for granted but could do more with if you fully claimed your responsibility?
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Something Borrowed – A Summer Series Exploring the Thoughts of Others
This post is part of my summer series called Something Borrowed. In these posts, I explore the thoughts of creative thinkers from earlier decades or centuries, as well as from other cultures and backgrounds. My intention for this series is to expand the type of thoughts and perspectives I can offer and make us realise that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel: many of our struggles are hundreds of years old, and we can rely on generational wisdom to move past them.
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Please share how these thoughts resonated with you. I’m always a comment or an email away.
And remember that hope isn’t given to us but created within and by us, so you might as well use your freedom to do something that sparks hope.
With kindness,
Aurora
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Love this series idea!