Freedom.

“To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.”

– George Bernard Shaw

I recently read a book titled Drive by Daniel Pink. In it, the author touts that he has seen the future and that the future works because of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. He cites multiple examples of autonomy leading to productivity and states that scientists have found autonomy to be not just good for human life (e.g., decreases stress), but for productivity in the workplace as well (of course, this has to do with heuristic work and not algorithmic work). For example, small businesses which employ autonomy have only a third of the turnover and four times the growth of businesses which utilize a top-down approach of control. Autonomy works! After all, humans are not human resources; we are more than the sum of our parts. By default, we are born active and engaged, and have submerged our innate nature of self-direction for the sake of economic survival. Ultimately, Pink states that the economy which we have diligently submitted ourselves to has changed, and that a new type of economy has arisen, one that requires freedom.

A while back, Steve Wozniak came and spoke at ACU (2/28/11); unknowingly, he described a little bit of heaven to me. He said that in life he only wanted to do two things: be a great engineer and a teacher. He accomplished these two things via nontraditional methods. For example, he didn't finish school to be an engineer, but is considered one of the greatest engineers to have ever lived. Nor was he educated to teach, but has a heart for teaching and has contributed more to education than most teachers will. Wozniak's circumvention of the establishment personifies George Bernard Shaw's statement that, “to be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer”

I also just recently finished reading Dr. Lytle’s book, Abandon the Ordinary. The book presents various exercises, and in one such exercise he asks us to picture our notion of an ideal day at work. This ideal day at work couldn’t be a list of technical things (e.g., finishing our to-do list); rather, if our lives were a documentary, what would the film crew see? Honestly, I had trouble consolidating what this sliver of heaven would look like; however, I had no qualms picturing an ideal day in hell: a cubicle. In other words, the antithesis to heaven, for me, was the inability to steer, to set my own direction; hell to me is the lack of self-direction, of freedom, of autonomy, of the power to engage in meaningful, creative, imaginative, and life changing work. I never want to be like the protagonist of Joe vs. The Volcano, who yells at his boss, after finding out he has months to live, that he cowardly sold his life to his boss for minimum wage because he was too afraid to live his own life. As Dr. Lytle always says in class, “Don’t prostitute your potential!”

I once read a man’s description of hell, whether or not he was stating the truth I do not know, but he described something truly potentially frightening: in hell, individuals were bereft of the memory of Christ, and as a result, could not even utter the name “Jesus” in the eternity of torment. Frightening (at least to me)! The bereft of autonomy! Think of it this way, autonomy is so potent than even God Himself has allowed us to employ it in whether we choose to believe in his son or not. Satan on the other hand, doesn’t even want us to have the freedom to say “Jesus”. This doesn’t mean that autonomy must be present in all situations, or that lack of autonomy is evil. After all, giving 100% autonomy to my two year old daughter is a recipe for death – literally (so is giving her 0% autonomy)! But this does mean that when we are given the opportunity to employ autonomy we should do so to the fullest! Think of The Parable of The Talents. The Lord gave three individuals full autonomy in terms of their given talents. It was the servant which refused to employ this autonomy to the fullest which was called lazy and evil (i.e., he hid his talent and refused to explore his freedom, his autonomy). And what did the Lord do? He said, “Throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” God knows our potential in terms of autonomy and is saddened when we do not live to our fullest.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

~Marianne Williamson

"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

~President Theodore Roosevelt

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