able to choose what you are willing to sacrifice, what you are willing to give
up.
This sort of self-denial is paradoxically the only thing that expands real
freedom in life. The pain of regular physical exercise ultimately enhances
your physical freedom—your strength, mobility, endurance, and stamina. The
sacrifice of a strong work ethic gives you the freedom to pursue more job
opportunities, to steer your own career trajectory, to earn more money and the
benefits that come with it. The willingness to engage in conflict with others
will free you to talk to anyone, to see if they share your values and beliefs, to
discover what they can add to your life and what you can add to theirs.
You can become freer right now simply by choosing the limitations you
want to impose on yourself. You can choose to wake up earlier each morning,
to block your email until midafternoon each day, to delete social media apps
from your phone. These limitations will free you because they will liberate
your time, attention, and power of choice. They treat your consciousness as an
end in itself.
If you struggle to go to the gym, then rent a locker and leave all your work
clothes there so you have to go each morning. Limit yourself to two to three
social events each week, so you are forced to spend time with the people you
care about most. Write a check to a close friend or family member for three
thousand dollars and tell them that if you ever smoke a cigarette again, they
get to cash it.^14
Ultimately, the most meaningful freedom in your life comes from your
commitments, the things in life for which you have chosen to sacrifice. There
is emotional freedom in my relationship with my wife that I would never be
able to reproduce even if I dated a thousand other women. There is freedom in
my having played guitar for twenty years—a deeply artistic expression—that
I could not get if I just memorized dozens of songs. There is freedom in
having lived in one place for fifty years—an intimacy and familiarity with the
community and culture—that you cannot replicate no matter how much of the
world you’ve seen.
Greater commitment allows for greater depth. A lack of commitment
requires superficiality.
In the last ten years, there has been a trend toward “life hacking.” People
want to learn a language in a month, to visit fifteen countries in a month, to
become a champion martial artist in a week, and they come up with all sorts
of “hacks” to do it. You see it all the time on YouTube and social media these
days: people undertaking ridiculous challenges just to show it can be done.
This “hacking” of life, though, simply amounts to trying to reap the rewards