Personal freedom is something that I believe we can all say we want. Yet it is something that is often misunderstood both in its relation to our personal lives and on how to go about getting it. On this May Day celebration, May 1, 2012; many protest demanding equal rights and more accountability from those that would oppress the greater individual majority.

While most of these protests, that are now occurring around the world, focus on the inequality of wealth distribution, there is the underlying tone of oppression. This inequality could not be possible of course if the people were free to choose their own system of just governance. Essentially there is a belief that those at the top are not listening or trying to help those that they are supposed to govern. That the governments are not doing what they should to stop corporate corruption, that elite superiority and the acquisition of greater wealth by these elite has become far more important than true representation. These protests represent a fight for freedom from this oppression. These protests represent a desire for freedom by those that believe that they are being oppressed by a group of individuals that is becoming more and more powerful every day.

The fight for freedom is a very scary one. The really scary part about it is not the actual fight itself, it is usually the realization of what freedom truly represents. Freedom is the ability to have an increased amount of possibility. Freedom is scary because it means that there are no rules, that you need to create those rules and those boundaries for yourself, that no one will tell you what to do because you will now choose for yourself. Freedom is a lonely road because while free, you are headed in a direction that is new and uncharted.

You are free right now, if you choose to be. All you need to do is decide to walk the road of freedom and exit stage right. Freedom by its very definition is the ability to just walk away in your own direction, making your way along a road less traveled, or perhaps never traveled before. What can be more scary than this?

We are all free to choose to walk this path to freedom. There is no need to fight or to impose our will on another. Freedom is first and foremost a belief that you must create within yourself; an ideology that you must first contemplate and understand, and then a belief that you must choose. Freedom is not something that can ever be taken away from you, if you believe that you are free.

No one can be oppressed the chooses to walk away from this oppression. To walk away from this oppression first begins by understanding that freedom is something that you CAN have right now. Freedom first begins deep within the inner self by understanding that it’s an inalienable right of each and every soul. That this freedom can never be taken away no matter what you might believe at the moment or what others might want to make you believe.

Freedom is choice. It begins by understanding that oppression is only possible if you believe that others can oppress you. By choosing to believe that you cannot be oppressed, that you are free at this moment, you can begin to see the possibilities that are open to you right now. By seeing these new possibilities, you can move in that direction. You can take action that will lead you away from what will eventually seem like a nightmare, a nightmare that showed you clearly what you did not want and gave you impetus to change the very nature of your life and experience. If you have the courage to choose this freedom then there will be no power that can ever hold you down.