Freedom, The Ultimate Journey

Freedom, everyone wants it. Be it a victim of captivity or if one just wants to temporarily remove himself/herself from that place where everyone knows his/her face. It is yearned for like a forbidden fruit, but what if things go as one has planned and that step to freedom is obtained. Will it be truly enjoyed?

Say, for example upon turning that significant age of eighteen or twenty one, (in some societies in the world, twenty one is the legal age of adulthood) you finally get the opportunity of a lifetime. A chance to be away from parents who watch your every move and interrogate your new friends to the point of embarrassment. Or it could be a chance to go off to college or to a bigger city, state or country in search of some sophistication, worldly knowledge and brighter future.

For the first time in your life, you find yourself all alone, and as you sit there, free to go anywhere you please without asking anyone’s permission, be it a passenger on a train, bus or some other form of public transportation, you find yourself thinking.

Thinking about all the things you are now observing in that new place, with no distractions, or persons to shield you from the harsh realities of life; such as that homeless person on the street. For when you were at home, your parents may have sheltered you from seeing such sights.

Then as you settle in to your new living quarters in that far off place, you again think to yourself. You start thinking about that one thing you would like to have for dinner, but say your parents kept you on a healthy diet, so you did not consume it as often. So, since you are so free to reasonably do as you please, you pick up the telephone and order that pizza with the works. Then while the days go by and you acquire new friends, you feel a liberating change coming on.

For when you invite these new found friends to your place, there is no one to question them or you about their parentage, careers or plans for the future. It’s just you and them, your new friends. And as you enjoy laughing at that joke one of those friends has made, you think to yourself how refreshing this new found freedom can be. Then when your first week in your new place winds down, you realise something else.

How caring your family have been of you, and as you reach for the telephone to contact your parents in a show of gratitude, you think to yourself, this freedom thing isn’t so bad, in fact it’s great. For freedom comes in many forms, how you handle it is what truly matters.

Photo courtesy:www.chebucto.ns.ca/Environment/NHR/bird_images.html