You’ve heard it said so often that it almost doesn’t mean anything… “Freedom isn’t free”

While this is definitely a sacred truth of reality with regards to our culture and our nation; what I believe is a much more relative and pertinent truth is, the fact that freedom actually comes at a very high cost within your personal life whether you realize it or not.

The simple truth about freedom is that, not only is it not free but the weight and responsibility of freedom can actually kill you. You may not be consciously aware of it but when you look at your life and you look at the reality of what you’ve done with the freedom you’ve been given, it triggers happiness or sadness, fulfillment or a lack of fulfillment, contentment or discontentment… The truth about freedom is simply that just as day implies night, light implies dark, life implies death, FREEDOM implies RESPONSIBILITY. Victor Frankel a Holocaust survivor who is one of my favorite psychotherapists and the man who created Logo Therapy was 100% correct when he said, “freedom without responsibility equals death.”

Why is it that 22 veterans commit suicide every single day?

Why are we arguably the most psychologically ill country on the planet?

Why is it that with all of this freedom we come in 18^th place in the 2018 world’s happiest countries report?

The truth is so simple. What you do or don’t do with the freedom you’ve been given will liberate or crush you in this life. You are going to pay to play this game of reality creation, no o

ne escapes this responsibility. On a personal level no one is coming to sa

ve you. Sure someone may pay a bill or give you a hand up but they’re not going to build within you the character you need in order to be the person you need to be in order to walk in the abundance of your destiny. Taking on the weight, the honor and a privilege of the responsibility to do everything you can with the freedom you’ve been given, to be the person you’ve been sent here to be is every human being’s number one responsibility. Your family needs you to do this, the world needs you to do this, most importantly you need you to do this but if you don’t do it then your freedom will lead you to a crushing fate and it will be your own fault. If you didn’t have freedom then you could blame it on someone else but we a

re honored by the adversity and opportunities that are given to us by grace in this life.

There was a moment when the Forefathers were in a room together and they looked one another in the eyes right before signing the Declaration of Independence and every one of them purposed in their hearts that no matter what happens next, life or death, blessing or cursing… They were willing to live with the cost in order to reach for simply the possibility of freedom. I think that we can all learn from their level of dedication and determination in making sure we all have the right and ability to choose our own fates and destinies during our lives because we have been born in this amazing country. In this life there is only victory or capture, so give me liberty or give me death!

Semper Fi – Do or die – Death before dishonor

“Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning