freedom

Hello, my name is Carly Scanlon and I am a high school senior. I am obligated by law to wake up every morning and go to school. I am expected, by my family and my peers, to apply and attend college next year. I am assumed to only care about clothes, parties, makeup, and boys.I am entitled to freedom of speech but I am expected to speak a certain way. I am allowed to choose my own path, but I am supposed to go to college, get a job, get married, and start a family. I am permitted freedom but being trained to not use it. I am free but it doesn’t feel like it.

My perception of freedom cannot be justified through any sort of law, regulation or amendment. To me, real freedom is a state of mind, a feeling that is only generated by those who are not afraid to open their hearts to all of the beautiful opportunities and privileges this world has to offer. One of my first experiences with true freedom was achieved through sitting on the bare pavement of a parking lot, using a plastic fork to eat soup out of a red solo cup, surrounded by my favorite people in the world, behind a camper which was attached to a car that was prepared to take us to any destination we wished. We laughed together, enjoying the view of the world from our seated positions as people walking by waved or occasionally shot a strange look. I realized on that day that their opinions and judgement of my actions just didn’t matter one single bit to me, I could care less about what any onlooker thought about me as they passed by. I never felt so free. Free of any responsibility, any care about societal expectation, any pressures to fit an image or a mold. I finally understood and experienced the value of leading an original life. I finally realized that I was holding back from being who I was because of social limitations that society has implanted in my mind and convinced me to abide by. The world is so much more beautiful when you just stop worrying about all these boundaries and start listening to who you are and following the path that you believe is for you. Don’t loose your sense of originality in the fog of what you think you’re supposed to be doing or what is ‘expected of you’. When you remove your mind from this expectation filled environment you will see that the world really is yours. You have so many choices, so many opportunities that are disguised behind sayings such as “what are the chances that you would be able to do that?” and “be more realistic”. Freedom is the act of defining yourself and choosing your own destiny. Don’t just picking what you want to do off of a list, create your own list. Freedom is having the ability to find happiness out of every situation you come across. Freedom is needing nothing.