Freedom means a lot of things to a lot of different people. It is hard to answer this question in a long answer, let alone here in a short blog post. However, I was talking to a friend the other day about a leadership program she was in and she was looking for some perspective on an issue she was dealing with. So I offered this to her about what I thought freedom is:

The one thing about freedom is this…that you really have anything to hide. That you think you have to hide something because if it got out you’d be the bad guy that no one likes or it would show that you are weird is what has you trapped. It is not necessary to disclose everything in life, but knowing that you could and that you are willing to is pure freedom!

So is it really necessary to categorize anything as a secret? In my world it is not. There is just what I’m willing to say and do, and what I’m willing to say and don’t. In the purest sense, there is no other meaning to what I say and what I don’t. But my humanity gets the best of me, and things that I don’t say seem to turn into secrets – that is the things that I’m not willing to say. The more I’m not willing to say, the more trapped or less free I feel.

The more I say, the more I’m free.