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The Cost of Freedom
We lose so much more than financial security — we lose ourselves
Perpetually working to pay debts to afford existence suffocates living. We sell our time to buy our survival and spend most of our lives worrying about life’s future price. Financial stress negates the freedom to experience life, yet we accept the burden as if there’s no other option, and we suffer for it. The effort relentlessly wondering how we’re going to afford life depletes the energy to consider ourselves, society, and the environment.
Humanity mentally adapts to a superficial life and tries to domesticate our instincts, but they’re insuppressible. Alcohol or other drugs, consumerism, TV, video games, social media, and any reliable escapism grants some reprieve from the socioeconomic pressure, but they aren’t sustainable. Short-term fixes as a substitute for what should naturally exist in our daily life don’t suffice and isn’t a fair trade.
We distract ourselves as much as possible, but we can’t separate from our primal instincts because we can’t outrun ourselves. We learn techniques to turn off our minds from the world if we’re fortunate, but it’s not easy. Bitterness overwhelms and defeats us when we’re endlessly running a marathon to nowhere, and eventually, the deprivation blurs our identity.