I was walking home one evening when I saw a goat tied to a wooden stake by the roadside. Nothing unusual about that. In this part of the world, goats are tied everywhere. What caught my attention was what happened next.
I walk home from work occasionally incase you're wondering and I love to look around because more than often I get to see and appreciate Life more.
The rope looked long enough for the goat to wander around and graze comfortably. Yet it remained in a small circle of dry grass, chewing lazily and occasionally staring at the greener patches beyond its reach. Almost like it was salivating but holding it self back with the false knowledge that it was beyond reach.
For some reason, I stopped and watched. I looked carefully. The goat moved confidently within a small area but never ventured near the edge of what the rope would allow.
It has been tied there for so long, that it has memorized its limits and my mind went "do you think people are very different?" That question followed me all the way home.
We often talk about free will as if it is something we either have or don't have. But the more I thought about it, the more complicated it seemed.
Technically, I am free. I can choose my clothes, my friends, my career path, what I eat, where I live, and even what opinions I hold.
But am I completely free? Not really.
There are laws that tell me what I cannot do. There are cultural expectations that shape what I should do. There are social consequences waiting for anyone who decides to color too far outside the lines.
If I walk naked through the market tomorrow, people won't celebrate my freedom. They will probably escort me to a place where people are professionally trained to help me.
If I refuse every social norm, I may not go to prison, but I might find myself isolated. Society, it seems, comes with ropes.
Yet the more I thought about the goat, the more I realized that perhaps the bigger issue isn't the rope itself. After all, some limits are necessary.
Without laws, roads would become battlefields. Without shared standards, cooperation would be nearly impossible. Civilization survives because people agree to stay within certain boundaries.
The more interesting question is whether we have accepted limits that don't actually exist. How many dreams have we abandoned because someone said people like us don't do such things?
How many opinions have we hidden because we feared disapproval? How many opportunities have we ignored because we assumed they were beyond our reach?
Sometimes society builds fences around us.Sometimes we build the fences ourselves. And perhaps true free will is not the ability to do absolutely anything.
Perhaps it is having the wisdom to know which boundaries protect us, and the courage to test the ones that don't.
As I reached home that evening, I found myself thinking about that 1 goat. Not because it lacked freedom. But because it had forgotten how much freedom it still had. It is not impossible that I and you are like that goat.
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