LEARNING TO BE “FREE” Food for thought?

Freedom is a tricky word because it is often defined unrealistically by humans.  Humans are nervous animals that want security, security of space, of economical status, of state of health, mind, and etcetera.

Human beings are raised to believe that freedom means “no worries”, “no criticism”. Our brain tells us that freedom assure us that “nobody will screw with us” once we achieve it. However freedom means a state of constant responsibility and accountability. Freedom means making decisions on our own and being accountable for our good and not so good judgment that leads to our mistakes.

We are a perfectionist society formed by “thin” skin individuals who are sensitive to any type of criticism. Perfectionists are never wrong; perfectionists have always a scapegoat in mind, so they are never accountable. Now, you tell me how a perfectionist can achieve freedom?

United States is a society built by workaholics and alcoholics, the people that came to the East Coast in the Mayflower were adventurers looking for a better life. When they arrived, there were no stores or restaurants or hotels to get room and board; instead, they had to learn to work the land while fighting Indians. The Spaniards that came to California were also driven people who found themselves in a similar situation.   These were compulsive people who could frequently achieve a lot by “doing” because this is what we were “trained” to do. Since then, anybody that comes to the USA has to have some type of a drive in order to survive; as a consequence, we are still getting driven and compulsive immigrants.  Regarding alcohol consumption, in the 1830’s the consumption of alcohol per capita was about nine gallons, in the 1970’s was calculated around two to three gallons; I am afraid that the consumption of alcohol right now is going up.

What kind of offspring do compulsive people get? Well, if you keep in mind that a large number of people learn compulsions at home, you can answer this easily. Compulsive parents raise compulsive children addicted to many things, including: worry, praise, work, blaming, laziness, food, alcohol, drugs, etc. Some are addicted to “looking good” and cover the bootie by not talking, by not taking risks; some other ones are addicted to “not looking good” rationalizing their behavior by blaming society for their misfortunes –either way we are covering our “bootie” by refusing to be FREE and accountable.

My dad was a workaholic; he could work a lot and make a lot of money. I remember as I was growing up how he praised my working hard in his business, while going to school and getting straight A’s; I graduated in the top of my medical school class, in my subspecialty training I published more papers that anybody in my class and I received a lot of praise. Once I started my medical practice, I applied the business experience I acquired during childhood from my dad and did very well economically.  As time went by I realized that the freedom I thought I was chasing was not the freedom my brain defined, which was the freedom of “no worries”. Actually the more “freedom” I achieved, the more worries I acquired. The awareness of this has been the greatest disappointments in my life; but also one of the greatest gifts. You see, I was a slave of the word freedom; the way society led me to define it. I always longed to be free and what I actually got was more chains handicapping my emotional growth and preventing me to get along with the people around me in a more realistic way. I mean realistic referring to what is really happening, not what I think is really happening. For example, I may think I am helping my children by sparing them from pain (not realistic); nevertheless, what is really going on is that I am preventing them from growing up instead of allowing them to have an experience that will prepare the to cope with bigger pains in their future. What I am really doing is clipping their wings!

This and many other societies’ dictates our behavior based on material wealth and/or fame; if we analyze carefully excess of wealth and excess of fame, both of them take us to the same goal: praise. The “spiritual gurus” are as slaves of their compulsion when pretending to know what is best for the world by telling its people how they should live their lives as those who self seekingly push people around in the name of wealth and fame.

© 2009 Rafael E. Cuellar, MD