Beloved, of course, freedom comes from inside you. It may well feel to you that freedom, as well as lack of freedom, come to you from somewhere else. Yes, it is possible for you to be imposed on.

Your experience may be that you are restricted by one thing or another, and not necessarily by your own volition.

Acknowledge that you contribute at least somewhat to your path of life. Don’t be quick to hold others responsible for your choices. At the same time, don’t be too quick to consider fault on your behalf either.

As the birth of a baby may be hastened or held back in the world, so may the receipt of unboundedness -- or boundedness in life -- be induced. Your Will toward or resistance against may well play a part. Choices in life exist. Ah, Beloved, choices co-exist.

No one would decide on an unhappy life, yet here you may be at this bend in the road. Your choices in life apparently lead you to where you find yourself. You may not line up to all that life has offered you, yet you have some choice in the matter. Take some responsibility for the life you arbitrate. You check off a menu of the day. Some of your choosing may be by default.

Sense of freedom can be accepted. The Art of Freedom can also be countermanded. It is not so easy to define freedom. To be free to say or do anything you want when you want may be a restriction on another’s freedom as well.

Also, to have no limits does some defining of you. To be as free as a bird may seem a privilege imposed upon you. Too much freedom all at once may be binding on you. No restriction on time or place may serve as a restriction. Limitless time may also feel enforced. Sometimes, life may seem overly hard.

Whether you find yourself, let’s say, in or out of prison, you may feel bound and gagged. There is a sense in which imprisonment may appear to you as a personal sense of liability.

How can it be to you that you could choose the influences that so much of life has had on you? You may feel bombarded with life, overwrought with life, hit over the head with life, obliged to life, as if you have no leeway whatsoever.

Once upon a time, time lasted, and there were no closed gates in sight. There was not as much trouble for you to get into. Maybe you don’t really request that all doors be open to you. You may not desire all the freedom in the world that you have been offered.

You may have certain choices that do not work out as you hoped they would. Your choices may come back again and again as a question of how you see or accept what you see as blessing or what you see as denial.

Yes, of course, you may well have been taught angles from which to see. Alas, whether you regard or disregard your innocent vision, you may see what is foisted on you as what you may have inherited and not your choice at all. Your original perception may appear as if it had been stolen from you. You may not have been allowed to see except as you were convinced – contrary to your own eyes. Your life may have been misconstrued and seemingly appropriated to follow suit.

In truth, no one knows you as you and I do. Others’ opinions are only opinions, yet others’ views can be passed on to you as truth. Misconstrued life may have been beaten into you. Your heart may have been nipped in the bud. Your clear-seeing may have been scared out of you, as if the world at large must have been smarter than you, Beloved, the truth is that you are the one who knows yourself better than anyone else.