The secret to happiness is freedom... And the secret to freedom is courage
- Thucydides -
In my humble opinion freedom is the base for everything, not just happiness. To evolve, to study, to work, to enjoy my time, certain degrees of freedom are always necessary.
Being free is not easy as you think.
There may be obstacles from outside and inside to be free.
Really free people are difficult to be controlled, are difficult to be biased, corrupted and influenced. That’s why Courage is strictly necessary to break physical, mental chains or at least, avoid them.
I definitely relate myself to courage, even if I have to admit that I have too some weak spots that at least I am aware of and I am already on the road to deal with them, as some situations are not so easy to be solved.
An act of courage I take on an everyday basis is speaking out loud when I see things that I think are not fair, not correct, trying to defend the harmed side and justice overall.
An act of courage is when in my house I frequently point at the attention of Mary how she can improve her life by optimizing her actions, reducing wastes, improving the quality of foods we eat and so on. Sometimes I feel I literally lack of breathe when saying it and hearing some replies, but one of my major skills is definitely patience, and on the long run, Mary has very often thanked me for the inputs I gave her.
Source: Author. Me and Mary, in 2020, in Belgium (I guess Bruges)
An act of courage is when the last year, I dropped playing wheelchair basketball on the 9th of January as to continue playing I would have had to take the “magical jab” and I refused it, so I stopped playing, I got harshly ejected from the team.
Source: from the author. I chose this picture, even if it’s not my last game on 9th January 2022, but it’s my last game in Padua in 2013, where I built true and sincere relationships with the guys I was playing with, a couple of them invited me to their marriage and still now we are in touch (after 10 years). Here I was hugging my coach, that initiated me to wheelchair basketball and taught me a lot!
Anyway, we have a motto in Italian that says aiutati che il ciel ti aiuta, that in english is more or less “Help yourself that the sky will do the same”. And when I stopped playing wheelchair basketball, I discovered Yoga, that is now a huge passion and a new way of life I have taken.
Source: from the Author. Me while correcting apprentices while performing Halasana (the Plow posture)
Another act of courage have been dropping my job as an engineer back in 2015 to start pursuing my dreams-work, being them fully remote, with flexible timetables and in more simulating areas (like cryptocurrencies).
Source: from the Author. 2016, Here I was in Tampa, Florida for the World Convention of the Company that taught me a lot on how to build a business and how to deploy my own activity and how to trigger myself to get out of the comfort zone.
Source: From the Author. An incentive trip (offered by the Company I was working with) in Marrakesh (Morocco), with a full immersion in training from top entrepreneurs.
Another act of courage, in 2014, my first summer with no girlfriend, I chose to spend my summer work holidays in Lisbon, Portugal, as a volunteer in a convent. In the morning I was an animator for small kids, during lunch I brought lunches to poorer and handicapped people that could not come to the convent canteen and in the afternoon I was sometimes free and other days I helped people that were moving from one house to another.
Source: from the author. The Triumph Arch on Rua Augusta, in Lisbon
Last but not least, when the last year I decided to marry. I have been against marriage for a good part of my life but I then realized that they were just inertial thoughts in my mind that once dismantled, I was ready!
Source: from the Author. Me and Mary.
Courage does not provide immediate freedom, but it’s a powerful tool to break chains
Freedom is a long lasting path that we pursue through our entire life, improving our mental and other hidden capacities that we have (in Sanskrit they are called “siddhi”).
One more thing I feel to add is that freedom can really bring to happiness. Yes. Absolutely.
**You know what the problem is? **
That also in this case, freedom may not bring an immediate state of happiness for a couple of reasons: the first one is that we are not really used to be really free. So at the very beginning we can feel some states of loss and confusion (that are far from being happiness).
Secondly, many people may prefer a short-term satisfaction/result that ends in a long term loss while the real freedom is usually obtained with some sacrifices and courage as well.
Accepting local losses to get the global victory is usually worth it but people often miss the long term perspective on their path.
