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January 30 - March 6, 2019
Why, having been endowed with the courageous heart of a lion, do we live as mice?
We have forgotten that the natural foe to life is not a distant death, but a present, in-the-moment detachment from living.
We must set intentions for who we are, for what roles we wish to serve, for how we’ll relate with the world. Without a vibrant awareness, we cannot connect with others or ourselves, nor can we meet the demands of the hour with grace. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL MEET LIFE WITH FULL PRESENCE AND POWER.
A life of greater joy, power, and satisfaction awaits those who consciously design their life. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL RECLAIM OUR AGENDA.
Without self-mastery, we are slaves to fear. With it, greatness and transcendence are ours. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL DEFEAT OUR DEMONS.
We have forgotten that courage is a choice, and that permission to move forward with boldness is never given by the fearful masses. Most have forgotten that seeking change always requires a touch of insanity. If taking action before the perfect conditions arise, or before we receive permission, is unreasonable or reckless, then we must be unreasonable and reckless. We must remember we are not the sum of our intentions but of our actions.
For this, we now declare: WE SHALL ADVANCE WITH ABANDON.
Our supreme duty must be to rekindle the magic of life. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL PRACTICE JOY AND GRATITUDE.
Freedom and victory belong to those who remain true and strong despite temptation. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL NOT BREAK OUR INTEGRITY.
To stand emotionally open before the world and give of our hearts without fear of hurt or demand of reciprocity—this is the ultimate act of human courage. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL AMPLIFY LOVE.
WE SHALL INSPIRE GREATNESS.
WE SHALL SLOW TIME.
Let us remember that humanity’s story has only two perennially recurring themes: struggle and progress. We mustn’t wish the end of the former, as the latter would be buried alongside it.
for only two things can change our lives: either something new comes into our lives, or something new comes from within.
I want freedom for the full expression of my personality. MAHATMA GANDHI
Humankind’s main motivation is to seek and experience Personal Freedom.
Choosing our own aims and seeking to bring them to fruition creates a sense of vitality and motivation in life. The only things that derail our efforts are fear and oppression.
Personal Freedom—our goal—means: living freely by crafting a life on our own terms; being free in the moment from oppressions, of past hurts and present anxieties; being lighthearted and spontaneous as free spirits; courageously speaking our thoughts, feelings, and ambitions with those around us, without concern about acceptance;
enjoying our free will to pursue abundant happiness, wealth, health, achievement, and contribution; freely loving whom we choose with passionate abandon; standing freely on our own, professing and protecting our ideas and integrity; serving a mission that we have chosen; fighting to give our children a foundation in such freedom, building in their hearts the will to live as they choose so that they may meet oppression with courage, and opportunity with a virtuous intent to contribute.
each of us, every individual, ought to have the right to happily and peacefully move our lives forward without fear or hurt or imprisonment or arbitrary social constraints.
When freedom is gone, suffering sets in for all.
The ultimate narrative of the human species is its quest for more freedom and the related struggles to ascend to higher standards of living and relating.
It is only in active self-expression and pursuit of our own aims that we can become free.
Seeking Personal Freedom begins when we are young and starting to form our own beliefs and directing our behaviors independent from the command of our caregivers.
to rattle the cage of conformity, is to invite real risk into our lives.
But to stay confined by other people’s rules brings about other risks. Chasing the prizes that society tells us we must want can also drive us from our true self.
This is the ultimate misery: living a life that is not our own. A difficult choice must therefore be made between the comforts of fitting in and pleasing others and our higher motive for Personal Freedom.
We learn that the more we are true to ourselves, the more we can connect with and contribute to the world.
Self-oppression is the condition of letting our own negative thoughts and actions restrict us. It is an inside job, a burdening of our spirit by incessant doubt, worry, fear, and distraction.
Self-oppression is evident whenever we limit ourselves.
Indeed, the telltale signs that someone is free and healthy are genuineness and growth.
Freedom requires responsibility to choose who we are above and beyond our immediate impulses, needs, and social pressures, so that we can genuinely express the type of person we want to be, live the life we truly want to live, leave the legacy we desire.
We must be conscious and responsible for our beliefs and behaviors if we are ever to be free.
Thus Personal Freedom is more than just being free from pain—it is about being free to live, to truly enjoy and expand in life. It is not merely freedom from bad things that limit us, but freedom to experience good things that awaken us.
And so we want freedom from pain and yet will celebrate meaningful struggle and hardship because we know those very things will free us from one level of life and set us into another.
To achieve and sustain Personal Freedom, we must dedicate ourselves to self-mastery; we must determine and discipline our own motivations to stay true to our own sense of self, to our own path.
He who is brave is free. SENECA
FEAR RIPS US FROM FREEDOM. IT IS THE DESTROYER OF greatness.
Unless we are being chased by a deadly animal or deranged human, or face imminent physical harm like falling to our death, fear is just bad management of our mind.
Declaring that we will master our fears is the first great leap toward freedom. Our vitality, growth, and destiny all demand that we can topple fear.
Fear has become a crutch for emotional weakness.
When we allow fear as a constant in our lives, our ambitions and behaviors become small and constrained. We become timid and stressed. We withdraw. We become cowards. Life’s energy entropies—all things trapped in the cage of fear smother and die quickly.
Fear rules us only if we let it.
A great maturity opens in the human psyche when we accept that we can control our impulses by conditioning our thoughts, and that we alone are responsible for our emotions and reactions in life.
Fear wins or Freedom wins.
We are not slave to our history; we can be freed by our conscious thoughts and disciplined habits.
We cannot control how others treated us yesterday, so let us work instead on understanding how we are currently dealing with those who stoke our fear today.
The worriers around us today are often the biggest threat to enflaming our fear. They are the most likely to steal our motivation and destiny because they often seem to be our friends.
We must protect ourselves from being limited by those who care for us as much as by those who blatantly oppose us.
We must not worry what could go wrong but rather wonder what magnificence could enter our lives when we are consistently expressing our genuine selves and pursuing our true passions.
