What is the meaning of freedom? In the modern age, I'm sure this is the question everybody (especially young people) can answer right away simply like "freedom is doing what you like". But taking more consideration about this, especially when you observe your friends' lives, your relatives, your society or when you read some stories and follow international news, have you ever asked this question again? If freedom really is "doing what you like", why there are people whom you think can do whatever they like (or you like and dream about, not they 
) but you can't tell that they're free or at least completely independent? Simply talking, are they free of any constraints? Besides the physical constraints which everybody firstly thinking about like money, vehicle, illness, imprison, independent country, politics..., are there somehow philosophy and psychological aspects which we have to pay attention to?
Well, it's not any by accident that I check the meaning of freedom in wikipedia tonight to find out what is the meaning of freedom. Throughout 5 years since I first studied in university, met different people with different characteristics, cultures and living styles, I've been interested to observe and learn about my life and my living environment. In fact, in the beginning, I didn't intend to find out answer to any specific question but simply I like to observe, think and withdraw lessons or meanings.
Okay, back the meaning of "freedom" cited in wikipedia, they define it pretty complicatedly with highly academic, dry and compact words 
Sorry Mr. Wiki, I don't have time to look up dictionary 
Skimming through, I find there are some useful and interesting sentences as I paraphrased below:
| Freedom is the ability to act without restraint. In the context of internal control, freedom is also known as self-determination, .... The protection of interpersonal freedom can be the object of a social and political investigation, while the metaphysical foundation of inner freedom is a philosophical and psychological question. Spiritually, freedom encompasses the peaceful acceptance of reality. |
Observing environment, reading the same essay or talking the same language doesn't mean that we all understand and perceive the same things. We observe things through our own prism of experiences or current status. Here my experience helps me highlight the final sentence: "Spiritually, freedom encompasses the peaceful acceptance of reality".
Just because I found out for long that the reality is not always what we want it to be, so in fact can we always do what we like ? In addition, the paradox is that what we like and love the most will be our constraints to freedom if we don't know how to accept the reality peacefully when they're gone. One for example that I used to be addicted to computer games. One day without it was extremely boring and I couldn't do anything else. As normal, I could do what I like (I'm free), but one day without it I'm imprisoned. If today electricity for your city is out, could you happily spend your day wandering around, visit your friends instead of laying in your house complainning about your boring day since you can't access to the internet, chat or watch tv? At the moment of complaint, could you consider that you're free?
To make it general, although I have to admit that I haven't had much living experience, I find peaceful people are those who are really free (even though they may have constraints in physical capabilities like lacking money, being ill or alone, but they're free since they accept it, cope with it well, happily and peacefully). Peace and freedom are closely related to each other. If you want to be free, of course you would like to improve your life and enhance your physical capabilities but don't forget there are psychological one which comes from learning and practicing to be peaceful.
-- (Khuong Nguyen)
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