Freedom

Freedom, to me, is like air.

I expect it when I wake. I trust it to be there when I sleep. I reach for it when life feels overwhelming. And I feel its absence immediately, like a fish out of water. If I'm ever in a frantic or manic state, don't try to calm me. Remind me that I am free. That is what I need.

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When I think about my vocation, I think of freedom as the ability to create solutions without constraint. It's the most productive way for me to think. As an engineer, I understand the value of facts, theories, and principles. They ensure accuracy and predictable outcomes. As an innovator, I'm energized by the ability to move beyond them. That tension between structure and possibility is meaningful to me. I hope I never lose it.

In all other things, freedom is what allows me to dream, and dream big. Oh, the places my mind can go. It wants the best of all things, good and challenging. Freedom is what combats my fear. Free to try. Free to win. Free to lose well. Free to try again. What's to fear in a world like that? It is my optimal state.

And yet, I am not always free. Life has a way of presenting you with events and circumstances out of your control that remind you freedom is a privilege. There are also times when I give up my freedom unknowingly, surrendering it in ways I don't immediately recognize. I cringe every time someone close to me suggests I'm not free in a certain area. Me? Not free? Impossible. But I've grown less defensive about that. And since freedom feels like air, the times I feel its absence take me back to swimming, where learning to breathe well was the line between panic and power.

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I swam competitively for seven years. Swimming is immersive and all-consuming. It demands four of the five senses (I prefer not to taste anything while swimming, lol). Your mind is always working: counting strokes, adjusting form, watching the flags, sensing competitors. The way water moves across your body tells you whether you're maximizing your length or if someone is closing in. But more than anything, how you manage your air is everything.

Once you're comfortable in the water, the first thing they teach you is how to hold your breath underneath it. Getting good at it is a journey. You go from dunking your head and popping up gasping for dear life, to rising gracefully, to finally breathing calmly as you surface. I learned to do this at multiple depths, sitting on the floor of the deep end and then floating back up. It takes bravery. The deeper you go, the more you hope you've judged the distance correctly and can control your breath on the way back. I miscalculated a few times. I survived.

What I learned is that freedom in the water was directly tied to discipline. The discipline of my breathing. The discipline of the keyhole stroke and dolphin kick during butterfly. Lengthening my arms when I saw the backstroke flags so I could maximize a turn I was entering blind. Breathing every three strokes instead of four during freestyle so my body stayed even and I could actually see the competition. All of that discipline gave me freedom in the water, even in the strokes I liked least. I loved breaststroke, but even then, the discipline of not getting lost in the glide, of focusing on the rhythm and holding each movement just long enough, was what allowed me to shoot through the water effortlessly.

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That memory is a comfort when I notice I'm not free somewhere in my life. It usually just means I'm undisciplined there. I've used that lens often: with my finances, my time, my health. And when I've noticed a lack of freedom in those areas, I was something to be dealt with. The frustration. The attiTUDE, with a capital TUDE (lol). A whole lot of talking back in the form of rationalizations and excuses. Sound familiar? I thought so.

But all of it, the irritation, the resistance, the light temper tantrums, was just my signal. My way of telling myself that something needed attention. And eventually, the pattern became familiar enough that I could follow it: sit with the discomfort, accept that what I had was no longer working, spend some deep quiet time with God, then tell a trusted friend or two where I'm at.

If I can get to that place, the rest is smooth sailing. It usually involves some research, some unlearning, finding the right help, and then trying over and over again until I'm where I want to be.

The past has brought revelations and a lot of unlearning. This year, I'm excited to see the fruit that will be produced. I expect it may look strange to me, compared to who I thought I was. But I'm hoping it tastes oh so good.

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So while freedom in my work means creating without constraints, in my life it means not being enslaved to my own undisciplined behavior. Two very different expressions of the same thing, and I'm still learning both.

The water taught me that. Discipline isn't the opposite of freedom. It's the path to it.

And now that I know that, I'm less afraid of the places where I don't yet feel free. They're not dead ends. They're just strokes I haven't mastered yet.