When I think about freedom and responsibility, I think about a certain phrase I’ve been hearing from my father since I was a child. It is that everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial. This reminds me of when Burke presented that we should see the possible consequences of the actions we take because of our choices. Although there is freedom, there are also restrictions we must take in consideration to truly be free. As human beings, we are allowed to do whatever we want to do or not do in life however, we need to understand that certain activities or the lack of certain activities may not be beneficial to our existence. Jean Paul Satre on freedom and responsibility views it as man is responsible for what he becomes because his consciousness and actions. In recent years, social media has been bombarded with the idea of YOLO (You Only Live Once), where in people bravely do what they feel like doing because you only get one shot at life. Although I think this idea is very brave, I think it lacks the part where we meet disasters along the way when we are not responsible for the actions we take. An example of when people misuse their freedom through YOLO is when people overspend their money on activities that are not worthwhile but justify it because “you’re only going to live once” or YOLO. But this is only seeing things in the perspective of the present and not gearing up for the future.

Having these realizations, I will still enjoy the freedom that I have but I will plan out my steps carefully. I know that you really cannot plan out your whole life but I think having a vision is really important as it gives you direction to where you are heading at. A new thing I want to try recently is to list down my personal values so that when making decisions, these values would be the core  of how I arrive at a choice. Another would be discovering my personal vision statement because I think it would benefit to have one so I can have manageable steps on how I would achieve it. Being just out of depression, I feel like it is really important to have something to look forward to. Without goals you just float through life or sink in your miseries but finding a purpose is what keeps you going in life.