Freedom and Family Ties

 

I wrote the title and then looked at it again. Doesn’t it sound like an oxymoron? My write up yesterday spoke about the mental makeup required to achieve a shift in mindset. Today we delve deeper into one particular point to understand how it works.

One the scary thing about freedom is the cost of it, which is to say the things we leave behind. These can be both, tangibles and intangibles, the relations, the places we grew up in, the memories, the possessions, or anything that we feel close to our heart.

I have often found the determiners to this freedom especially from family context are often judged by society. Some of the stereotypes in that context are baffling yet understandable

1. -         It is important to get married for a secured future.
2. -         Men ‘should’ have a career, women may or may not.
3. -         A certain look and a certain income for eligibility for marriage
4. -         Power structure- Women should be submissive. Men should prevail.

These are some, and have a huge impact on our decision making, more so because they are conditioned since childhood. One generation needs to work on conditioning, I think, makes life easier for the future.

Imagine conditioning a girl child, that she has a second-grade existence compared to a male child who is the torchbearer of the household and take on the family name. The girl will always believe herself to be less important not questioning when she is being married off at a young age to a man twice her age. Is that freedom for her? She is being tossed from one life of servitude to another, never thinking or demanding for herself.  For this girl, this is what free means. The question of whether she would risk everything she is currently familiar with to attain freedom as someone else defines it? I am not sure.

How do you think the ‘new normal’ is going to affect our freedom and family concept? In the earlier part of 21^st the century so far we have seen a disintegration of family ties, with technology taking time over family time, work over celebration and goals over festivities. This pandemic has made us take a hard look at our priorities.

We now know where we stand, and most importantly what is important for us. I personally saw movements this year where people chose to leave places they were unhappy in and move to happy horizons, and the transition sometimes was painful but worth the effort.  The reason for pain comes from the perspective of not just leaving loved ones behind but also flouting societal expectations. 

There are some lessons that this pandemic taught me about Freedom

-         Freedom is personal. It is a choice I make and take responsibility for it.

-         Awareness and circumstances decide your choice of freedom. The more aware you are the better you will be able to critically examine your situation and decide how to deal with it. Awareness is acquired by reading, networking with people beyond  your circle

-         Freedom means change. One cannot expect to live in the same circumstances and expect to be free. I am reminded of a book by Marshall Goldsmith which went by the name, “What got you here, won’t get you there!” The title strikes me as relevant even in this context.

 

Society is changing and so are mindsets. The things that were true some 20 years back are no longer applicable, and hence we should stop living in the past and look at what we are capable of doing in this moment. We need to keep up because it is not just 10 years which going to be change worthy but every coming year will be a stepping stone to your future