When I first started the 30-day blogging challenge, in August 2015, I decided to take “Living Free” as my moniker. I don’t think I had a true understanding what it even meant. I found a cool picture and thought it fit into the theme.
Since blogging daily, and the life choices I’ve made since August, I have a clear understanding of what living free means to me. It’s not some cute catch-phrase or a dream in La La Land, but a mindset of self-discovery, self-belief, and putting thought into action. To start to understand the meaning of living free I’ll first explain what it doesn’t mean.
What Living Free Doesn’t Mean
- Living free doesn’t mean being lazy. No matter how awesome it sounds to sit on a couch and watch TV all day, that’s the furthest thing from living free. In order to live free, you have to be actively challenging yourself, putting yourself in new situations, and figuring out how you react to different circumstances. Sitting around won’t challenge you, and thus won’t open you up to a life you could be living.
- Living free doesn’t mean finding yourself. No matter how hard you try, you’re never going to find yourself. It’s impossible! Life, people, situations, and the world around us is too dynamic to find yourself. The only way to truly find yourself is in a vacuum, and we don’t get to live in a vacuum. We have to live in an ever changing world.
- Living free doesn’t mean finding your passion. Much like finding yourself, finding your passion is overrated. Instead of trying to find your passion, try to find something that gets your mind moving. When your brain starts obsessing over something, and you have a desire to get good at it, propel your passion forward. Eventually, you’ll determine if it’s merely a spark to ignite a bigger fire, or truly your passion.
- Living free doesn’t mean anarchy. Living free, in a world with governments and bureaucracy can lead us to a desire to “stick it to the man.” After all, freedom is the idea that we aren’t governed by higher forces. However, trying to take power away from the government isn’t something that happens by protesting or being politically active. The way around bureaucracy is innovation and creating the world we want to live in. Uber didn’t wait for government’s approval, instead, they started their ride-sharing app and dealt with the ramifications later.
What Living Free Means to Me
Living free means being unafraid of following your gut.
It means taking the path less traveled because you want to create the path for yourself. It means challenging yourself in many different aspects of life to find what makes you come alive. It means developing knowledge because a sentence you read sparked an ember in your mind. Living free is a mindset of discovery, creation, knowledge consumption, and applying your thoughts in actionable ways.
You’re not going to find yourself, or find your passion, by sitting around and doing nothing. Quite the opposite. It takes trying many things, wearing many hats, talking to many people, and constantly being in pursuit of more knowledge that helps create the living free mentality. Once you find a thing that makes you come alive, don’t dream up what the world would look like if you pursued it, start pursuing it now. Put the idea into action and see where it goes.
Living free means being unafraid of the path your passion might take you on. Follow your ideas by doing and eventually, living free will happen.