I have observed in myself and most people in the past years the tendency to search for security and be afraid of freedom. As if those two concepts were dramatically opposed.

We are afraid of freedom because we are lying to ourselves, thinking that we want to be free, while at the same time doing every action and taking every choice towards reducing our freedom. Because freedom means that anything can happen. Freedom is the unknown. It is scary. We cannot control it, we cannot plan or foresee it. Instead, we are reassuring ourselves and are choosing the known, where nothing new can happen, where we can predict events and daily habits, and where we have the illusion of comfort, the illusion of safety and security.

Let me tell you something: chasing security and comfort, as if it was the opposite of freedom, is avoiding life’s possibilities. It is trying to escape from life, trying to be spared by it. It is choosing death over life. Because the very nature of life is its uncertainty. We don’t know what is going to happen in the next moment. But when you’re dead, well, nothing happens anymore. Uncertainty is life, certainty is death.

But I have good news for you too: security and freedom might not be as opposed as we think. Allow me to elaborate.

Financial security and financial freedom

The majority of the population thinks that operating a business is risky because we do not know how much profit we are going to make, or how many hours we will have to work. And what if we fail and go into debt? It is full of uncertainty.

Instead of trying to work for ourselves, we seek to be employed. In this way we have the certainty that our paycheck will come at the end of the month. But is this real security?

It is only an illusion of security. Because relying only on one source of income, which is not even controlled by us and can be stopped when our employer decides to, is not giving us much safety, is it?

That is why I believe that only the illusion of security is opposed to freedom. But real security lies beyond freedom. In that case, beyond financial freedom.

Indeed, only when we have set for ourselves multiple streams of income, and we are earning much more than we spend, we can feel real financial safety.
When we have built for ourselves multiple streams of income, we are the ones in control of our financial health, we do not rely on others’ decisions. We are the ones in charge of our destiny. If one source is lost, others can still support us.

One way to look at this is to increase income, but if you do not know how to control your expenses you will spend everything. So, increasing income is not the only approach, it has to be used in combination with reducing your unnecessary expenses. If you earn $10,000 USD per month and spend $10,000 USD per month you are poorer than someone who is earning $1000 USD but keeps $500 USD at the end of the month. What is important is not how much you make, it is how much you keep.

The true definition of wealth according to Robert Kiyosaki is the number of days you can maintain your lifestyle if you stop working today. Wealth is a number of days, not a number in your bank account. It means that if you live in a minimalist approach and need only $1000 USD per month to sustain your lifestyle, and you have built passive incomes that bring more than $1000 USD, you are rich for a huge number of days, maybe years if your streams are diversified and long term.

Experiencing life and daily habits

Now, this is another area where I think that there is an illusion of security. In our daily life, we are trying hard to stay in our comfort zone, to stay within the boundaries of our daily habits, so that nothing bad happens to us so that we think we are in control of our lives. While I agree that this might be security for some of us, I do believe it is a very fragile and superficial security.

Indeed, Life will not always allow us to stay in our daily habits and in our comfort zone. There are things in life that we cannot plan, moments in life when we will be required to go outside of our comfort zone to step into the unknown. Life will not always go our way. Then what will happen to us if we have not trained ourselves to regularly go into the unknown? We will feel an even bigger discomfort and we will feel in danger. We are limiting dramatically our ability to interact with life, to be alive.

Trying to avoid discomfort is exactly what is going to bring discomfort in your life.

If instead, every time we have the opportunity in our life, we are choosing the unknown over the known, our comfort zone will extend dramatically. The area where we will feel capable will extend every day. We will feel more and more able to face any situation in our life. This is real security to me, knowing that no matter what happens, we will handle it. This is freedom also, freedom to experience life to the fullest. Only when this freedom is accepted and lived, real security will be found with it.

Final words

Security and freedom are not opposed. Only the illusion of security is opposed to freedom. We cannot control Life or prevent it from changing. The only thing that is not changing in life is that it is always changing. That is why real security lies beyond freedom. Freedom of experiencing life to the fullest, and being ready to do so, is real security.

We shouldn’t be afraid to explore all the possibilities of life, to go deep into the unknown. That way, when death will come, we will be ready to experience it. That way, we will feel like we have known life, we have explored everything. The only unknown left is death, we can embrace it with curiosity, with a fully conscious approach.

PS: If you like my work, you can receive it in your mailbox every time I publish a new post. You can also consider following me. It will be greatly appreciated. I’m sharing my life experience with you in the hope that It will add value to your life and inspire you to grow. Thank you for reading. This post was originally published on my blog. Quotations and claims are derived from my experience unless specified otherwise. My views and opinions on topics are not intended to replace yours but are offered to broaden your perspective of life.