Perhaps the "tough love lesson" in all of this is that everything in life has a "price" of sorts... in the sense that we invariably have to forego one thing, in order to have another.

So we gain freedom, but the "price" may be to give up security, in some sense of the world.

One of the "small gigs" I did not include in the above was consulting IT people who to leave Korporate Amerika. The hardest challenge was often coming to terms with needing to adjust their lifestyle in order to pursue their dreams of freedom. In their case... "can you DEAL with not having late model cars and a swank apartment?"

I get wanting freedom from nonsense... there's a lot of stuff I can't afford anymore, but the "price of admission" is worth it, overall... even though I complain a lot!