166. Finding Freedom

To be freed from a prison seems to offer great hope. We leave an environment of strict rules and order for one full of freedom and opportunity. We are now able to pursue the things we want. We now have a chance to find happiness. We now have an opportunity to become so much more than we were before.

We think happiness is likely because we expect it to follow from the satisfaction of our desires. When we were constrained by rules and structures, there was no possibility of such satisfaction, and so we suffered as a result. Now that we believe ourselves free, our desire begins to blossom.

Even the chance to obtain the things we want can be a powerful intoxicant. We start to seek out those things with a singular focus. All of our efforts are marshalled towards getting what we want. In such a state, we are controlled by attachment, and the end result is guaranteed to be further suffering.

Suffering might not arrive immediately. We might obtain many of the things we want, and feel great pleasure in those successes. But we will also quickly realize that these victories are not as solid or satisfying as we thought they would be, and we will be driven to seek more and more.

Eventually our desires will become too great to be realistically satisfied. We will run up against a wall that we cannot surmount. We will feel our life falls short of what it should be, and we will fall into despair. We might even find ourselves longing for the simplicity and security of the prison we have left.

But we cannot simply remain in prison. We cannot stay trapped in the rigidity of strict rules and overbearing systems and also live with the creativity and compassion that will bring us joy. We must instead discover how to be free from the domination of structure and from the domination of attachment at the same time. Only then will we be truly free to act purposefully and creatively towards a more joyful life.