What I'm Willing to Sacrifice to Obtain My Freedoms
Everything not in the list below.
Must Have Freedoms (The Ideal Life)
The freedom to live a meaningful life (having a meaningful life is a joy in and of itself.
- What I'm Gaining with This: You create a meaningful life by choosing responsibilities/burdens. These heavy loads give you a sense of purpose that allows you offset the suffering in life. Even the most horrible tragedies can become bittersweet if you have a good enough story and meaning behind it.
- What I'm Avoiding with This: The feeling of not having a clear purpose is a terrible feeling. It's especially exacerbated when you watch others around you who love what they do, feel a sense of meaning about their work, and are told their work carries deep meaning. Without a sense of purpose it can be easy to slide into the natural awfulness that raw, mean life brings - to ascribe negative, meaningless stories to the world around you.
- Discipline/How to Get There: Choosing to be disciplined in accepting and carrying the heaviest load I can in order to live a meaningful life. In choosing to reduce human suffering, as much as I can. (This is almost recursive. Also, includes planning and prioritization.)
The freedom to be free from financial worry. (expectations - reality = unhappiness; predicted expectations - predicted reality = worry)
- What I'm Gaining with This: Optionality. With money comes the ability to choose from more options. Like a game menu where you're purchasing new experiences and items, having more gold enables you to pick from more (and often better) options.
- What I'm Avoiding with This: The worry that comes from not having enough money is real. It changes people, raises your cortisol levels, and begins the fight-or-flight process. This directly shortens your lifespan. By being free from financial worry, not only am I avoiding the negative emotions that comes with being poor and not having enough options, I'm increasing my lifespan.
- Discipline/How to Get There: Choosing to be disciplined to the pursuit of wealth generation and moderation in lifestyle, so I can be free from financial worry.
The freedom to express myself and communicate with consideration, compassion, and courage, resulting in charisma.
- What I'm Gaining with This: The ability to be heard and respected. The feelings that come with having a clear voice that others listen to? The respect that can come with espousing a good idea in a clear, compassionate, courageous manner? Those are the experiences I'm seeking out in obtaining this freedom.
- What I'm Avoiding with This: The feeling that comes with being silenced and not heard in a room. I've had plenty of negative experiences in my life where there was something I wanted to say, but I didn't have the courage, compassion, or consideration to say it. I want to avoid these deeply negative feelings, which can instill shame in future mes.
- Discipline/How to Get There: Choosing to be disciplined to the pursuit of expressing myself and communicating with others with consideration, compassion, and courage.
The freedom to feel satisfied and excited by my romantic and sexual life.
- What I'm Gaining with This: Great romantic and sexual experiences.
- What I'm Avoiding with This: A life not filled with regret and what-ifs. Without a good romantic life, there will always be a "what else is out there?" question hanging over my head. But by focusing on appreciating what I have (and learning to thoroughly enjoy what I have), I can avoid these feelings.
- Discipline: Choosing to be disciplined to my relationship by approaching it with good intention and creativity, and working in service to what is best for the both of us, which should lead to feeling satisfied and excited by my romantic and sexual life.
The freedom to spend my time with a community of people I enjoy spending time with, whom (1) help me grow as a person, (2) I can help grow as people, (3) I respect, (4) respect me, and (5) can act as great collaborators on projects.