Free Will

Free will; Man’s greatest gift and yet his greatest curse. Without free will we would do what we were told, when we were told to do it, how we were told to do it and when to stop doing it. Simply put we would be automatons controlled by someone who was an automaton for someone else. It is free will that gives us the chance to make choices in our lives. It is free will that allows us to do good or evil. It is free will that makes us who and what we are and will become. That is what makes free will the greatest gift we have.

Free will also allows us the chance to make bad choices. Do I eat that boston cream filled éclair or stay on the diet and lose those extra fifty pounds? Do I keep smoking cigarettes and ruin my lungs or stop and let my lungs regenerate back into healthy organs? Do I keep walking or pick up that item that doesn’t belong to me without paying for it? Free will determines the answer to all decisions we have. What we do depends on our core beliefs and moral values. If we have been raised to be good, gentle law abiding citizens and our free will let us keep those values we will more than likely do the good thing. But, we have prisons full of people that took their free will and made the bad choice.

When a person likes another it is the free will of each that will determine how that relationship progresses or how it withers before becoming anything. John has a crush on Jane. Jane has her eye on Jerry who happens to be in a relationship. The choices people make here are all according to their free will. Who wins and who loses is all determined by each participant’s free will. There will always be conflict and there will always be winners and losers. John cannot force Jane to like him and Jane cannot force Jerry out of his current relationship. One cannot supersede another’s free will and make them do what one wants.

In today’s society it is rare that a relationship lasts any length of time at all. Why is this? It is because people have free will and make bad choices. A person will end a relationship simply because they have chosen not to continue it. It is plain and simple. They are using their free will to make a choice to end that relationship for whatever reason they can come up with. This is what makes free will a curse. People have become hedonistic to the point that if they feel slighted in the least they are willing to throw away whatever causes them the least bit of pain.

I think I would be safe to say that free will is controlled by our emotions, our desires and our needs. What we love, what we desire and what we need all determine what our actions will be. If we are hungry but have no money to feed ourselves what would a person do to eat? Our free will gives us the choices to either steal something to eat, beg some food from someone or work for some food. There is no one that can control another’s free will. A person can try to manipulate someone into a choice, debate an issue and change a the other’s perception or just argue a point to change in idea but a person will believe what they believe, do what they do or be with whom they want simply because it is their choice to do so. Their free will, their ability to make their own choices, controls all things in their life.

What would happen if we did not have our free will? Let’s put it into the relationship from above. John likes Jane but Jane is interested in Jerry. If there was no free will we wouldn’t have the choice of who we were with. Someone above us all would determine whether John is with Jane or Jane is with Jerry or even if John is with Jerry. John wants Jane to the point of obsession. They are at a party that has a hypnotist as a guest. John asks the hypnotist to make Jane like him. That would go against her free will and is extremely immoral. If she had no free will John’s request would be completely accepted. The hypnotist would put the suggestion in her subconscious that she was madly in love with John and he would get what he wants.

If we go one step further and say the both John and Jerry are obsessed with Jane. If Jane did not have free will to make her own choices what would happen?  Like the Trojan War, Greece and Troy fighting because of Helen, John and Jerry would fight over her with her having to sit back and wait to see who would ‘win’ her. Every person needs to have the ability to choose his/her own destiny. For good or evil our choices make us who we are. We are masters of our own destiny and we, alone, determine where our destiny lies. Our free will is the one most important factor in that. We do not always make right choices but if we did what would we learn?

I have witnessed people making bad, extremely bad, choices and tried to show them that. It is much better to learn from other’s mistakes than to go through the pain they did. But, as mi hijo as said to me many times, “I know you’ve tried to tell me but I have to go through it to fully understand it.” He has to learn by fire to get it through his head. My daughter has made some really bad choices in her short life but says the same thing. It is not a good thing when a person has to tell someone else, “I told you so. I told you this would happen.” Let each person use their free will to learn. Warn, advise and then be there to pick up the pieces when your loved ones fall on their faces and hope that they don’t make such bad choices as to ruin their lives. Their free will dictates where they go, your leadership, your wisdom and your teaching will have a big impact on that free will of those you love most. Make sure your free will dictates the right things to those people. Use the gift not the curse.