Freedom, Responsibility, Decisions – ElPropósito2 min de lectura

Three pillars for taking action (plus one extra ingredient)

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Is there something that binds freedom, our decisions and responsibility together? Yes: reason. We’re all born with this wonderful instrument, which has given humanity its greatest discoveries. It’s the tool that lets us tell right from wrong, the source of our values and the most powerful built-in capability of our human software. What comes after reasoning has a lot to do with the decisions we make and, above all, with taking responsibility for our actions.

What makes reasoning hard? It’s easier to hand it over to someone else, simply because of the energy it takes, and the brain loves to save energy. The moment we hand it over, we lose the first pillar that inspired this post: our freedom. Freedom for what? Above all, to think and decide what’s best for ourselves. Let’s not forget that the fruit of our effort may be our first form of private property. That’s why it matters so much for all of us lucky enough to live where we can make our own decisions to realize that freedom is the last thing we lose, as Viktor Frankl reminds us in Man’s Search for Meaning.

Freedom without responsibility is licentiousness. We earn our freedom by owning our actions, by taking responsibility for the fruit of what we want and, above all, by remembering that beyond the usefulness of what we achieve, what we’re really after is the well-being of everyone around us, ourselves included. Once we see how vital full freedom of thought is, and once we take full responsibility for our actions, one big step remains: deciding. How can we decide better? With a clear purpose, having worked out why we’re in this world. It’s a big question we often ignore, or may never have asked ourselves.

Actions with no direction, no purpose, lack responsibility. They become a waste of energy, like a ship with no port, drifting until sooner or later it runs out of fuel. Every decision still to be made has one great filter for telling good from bad: our reason. And that reasoning, paired with a well-defined purpose, has the whole playing field open to it, the freedom we enjoy. What’s left is to do what’s in our hands: make decisions, guided by the greatest rule of all, responsibility for our actions.

Warm regards and all the best,

• Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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