With freedom comes great responsibility!!

Have been hearing this statement from time to time over the last many years and didn’t really ponder over it. It was one of those many statements that one oft hears and says, “One more statement”!! Perhaps there weren’t situations that demanded the pondering or life just whizzed by with not much time spent on this statement. The latter was more true in my case than the former.

Pondering also happens when one is at the right place at the right time.

As one ages, we press the pause button. Life doesn’t pause but we pause to think. The last year and half has seen me pressing the pause button, from time to time; and this led me to ponder over this statement ‘WIth freedom comes great responsibility. Though I think that the adjective ‘great’ isn’t needed – responsibility by itself is great 🙂

Pardon me, dictionary, for not referring to you for the meaning of either freedom or responsibility. In this blog, I give myself the space (which is the meaning of freedom according to me) and am accountable for what I write about this statement (which is what is responsibility according to me).

When we are given the freedom, we are aware that there is a lot of space for us to move around, not physically but mentally. We have the space

– to decide to move or not to move

– having decided to move, how much or less to move

– be it less or more movement, how much time to take to move

– in the time that is taken, should we do every task ourselves or should we delegate

– or should we seek help from someone to complete the task etc etc etc

In each of the above is where our freedom lies.

Having freedom in the space we are in, we are accountable for the

– decisions we make

– decisions we don’t take

– intent behind the decisions we make or don’t take

– thought process behind the journey we make, with or without others etc etc etc

More often than not, this freedom comes with its own horizon, that is visible and yet not. The horizon seems larger than life. When we don’t know how to handle the freedom and the responsibility it brings, is when some decisions go awry and also when a sense of overwhelmingness sets in.

On the other hand when we don’t sense having the freedom, we feel that someone is breathing down our neck. There is minimal space given or felt. In such a case, there is a seeming responsibility in our hands but the actual responsibility is in the invisible strings in the hands of whoever is breathing down our neck. A visual just popped up in  my mind, as I typed this para. If you as a reader happended to bring a person in mind, that is you exercising your freedom 🙂

It is like a monkey sitting on our shoulders, holding tightly a string in its hand and telling us to hold another part of the string’s length. Only when the monkey moves the string, we can move it. This monkey will move our head, tap on our head, make noises and screeches, jump out and jump back etc etc etc. We would grit our teeth and stress out but may not do anything about it.Whatever decision we make or don’t take, whose move is it anyway? Ours or the monkeys? or do we think it is ours but it isn’t?

– Do we have a choice to push the monkey away?

– Can we resist the monkey’s moves, take a space and be as free as we can?

– Do we have a way in which we can move away from the space and the monkey?

– Will the heaviness of the monkey and its acts stay with us for days, months and years to come, so much so that even if we are in a space in which we are free, we don’t sense the freedom? This one sounds dangerous though. There is no monkey but we think there is. What a baggage to carry!!

Sometimes freedom is given but not taken.

Sometimes freedom is not given and not taken.

When freedom is both given and taken and similar in scale, it balances like the two sides of a weighing scale. In those moments of balance, happens growth – inner and professional growth.

Perhaps I could take the liberty to be free and say –  ‘With freedom comes responsibility’ needs to be changed to ‘With freedom comes responsibility and growth’!!!