What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

That could be one possible answer, Marcus.

Most of the time we start to appreciate the greater gifts of life once they're gone.

To me health is one of these treasures. When we fall ill, we start to realize that a healthy life is pretty much everything we might ask for.

So here's my theory of personal freedom 🕊️

Source: pixabay

Being free

I can't even remember when I came down with a cold the last time.

It must be years ago.

Now it happened again. I'm paralized since two days, wishing I could do a time travel and just skip these days.

There are a few things that are able to seriously harm my positive spirit and love of life.

Whenever I'm taken sick, it's as if nothing else mattered anymore.

Then I feel as if I was chained, condemned to downtime.

It's then when I especially wake up to the importance of physical health.

The ensured maintenance of physical health is my personal definition of ultimate freedom!

Freedom has become a buzzword, seemingly being one of the most desirable states of all in today's world.

According to Google there are two main definitions of freedom:

The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

But isn't freedom much more than that?

First of all, freedom means many things to many people.

In modern society's there is political and financial freedom for instance, the right to be heard, to vote, to be safe and the chance to be economically independent.

In this context freedom is merely associated to concepts such as law, taxes and security.

But what about the people that don't even live in modern structures, the people that struggle to survive on a daily basis? Would they seriously care about financial freedom?

Aren't these material goals just a shell that wraps the core idea of freedom?

We generally tend to think that once our particular freedom is achieved, all our problems will be solved. Imagine that you accomplish the financial freedom like you always defined it, but then you suddenly start suffering a heavy illness. How much value - from an overall life perspective - would this financial freedom still have?

Isn't life itself the maximum of freedom we could ever ask for?

Couldn't the pure existence and the chance to maintain one's life according to human values be an overall and universal concept of freedom?

Then any type of ethical values and moral concepts - thus any human value - would be included in the very concept of freedom.

Freedom is usually perceived as the result of an act of rebellion. It seems that freedom is hardly given but rather achieved.

Freedom never comes easy.

Probably that is due to the fact that the term 'freedom' has been shaped through history. It was celebrated as the one and only goal during times of racial segregation, opression and discrimination such as Apartheid.

And still freedom - in a sense of 'human equality' - is the ultimate dream of many nations in the world.

If the chance to live a life according to human values was our common understanding of freedom, then it would even enable us to take care of one another.

Nelson Mandela said once:

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

I think there is nothing more to add here.

Have a great weekend, steemians! I'll be fighting the flu virus to be free again :)

Marly -

PS: Don't forget to join the #LoveFriday hosted by the great @liliana.duarte.

Original content. Quote found on geckoandfly.com and pinterest.com.