Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!

Ecclesiastes 1:2

A line from Folk Implosion’s 1995 hit, Natural One, caught my ear earlier this week: “There’s no telling what we’ll do when we’re free.” Freedom is such a curious word. It means many things to many people. I suspect that’s because we associate it with doing whatever we want – there are endless combinations for that sort of freedom.

At its heart, the freedom to do is really about removing the things that hold us back: physical limitations, financial limitations, geographic limitations, role limitations, etc. If only we could get these things out of the way, we’d be free to do great things, or at least all of the things that make us happy.

But there are other limitations to our freedom and its promise of happiness. We can also see freedom as getting away from the addictions that hold us back. Addictions take many forms but basically boil down to wealth, power, pleasure, and honor. Of course, we primarily see addictions in the form of substance abuse or pornography but there are shades of it across all aspects of our lives. From the attachments to our daily caffeine fix to favorite TV shows to social media, we get our fixes in many places. Visually destructive addictions like alcoholism are more obvious entrapments but we can become chained to many other attachments.

Can you remember a time when you were freed from a limitation? A place where the real or imagined chains of some form of bondage were removed and you felt the wave of hope and new possibility? Freed from addiction, we see the world differently. Freed from a choking job, crushing relationship, or prison literally holding us in place, we are renewed with the do-over, the chance to start again. Freed from the fear of not being able to pay our mortgage, feed our family, a diagnosis, or a physical danger, relief surges through us and we can breath again. For a moment.

What happens when we’re freed? Hope fuels possibility. Our mind expands. We see pathways to the horizon rather then the dead-ends. With freedom, we can imagine something more or try something different. We can share, be, ask, wonder, and move, in a way that was not there before. Such is the feeling of freedom.

There’s no telling what we’ll do when we’re free.

Curiously, fear is a one of the great limiters of our freedom. Wouldn’t we all like to be free from our fears? Some fears are more real than others and fear does serve a self-protective function. But let’s face it, many of our fears are not of a clear and present danger. The fears that trap us tend to be the “what if” fears formed around our sense of risk in financial and emotional dangers. The risk of losing what we have creates fear, as does the risk of missing out, being humiliated, being rejected, or being forgotten.

A friend recently described me as a risk taker. I suppose on some level that is true. But our sense of risk is driven by two primary elements: 1) what you value and 2) what you stand to lose. Value is a measure of purpose – one values a thing according to where it fits in his or her vision of meaning – it reflects what matters. Determining what we stand to lose that reflects our sense of possession. Risk is the relation of the two. My friend’s assessment of my risk taking was associated with our business – on the outside some of my decisions and moves may appear risky because they put money or security at risk. Risk creates fear of loss.

But his follow up question, “what’s your why?,” reveals the deeper truth. Clarity of purpose relative to the things we are given or possess, makes such decisions less about risk and more about proper stewardship. What one person sees as risk, another may see as appropriate to the call of stewarding those gifts. If the goal is simply about security, some decisions may look risky. However, if the decisions are based on playing a different game, aiming not to protect but for a particular purpose, the risk profile changes dramatically. Here, the greater risk may be one of omission – not acting boldly in the moment of opportunity.

In this sense, risk depends on the game we’re playing. Freedom is playing a different game or playing the same game differently, part of which may demand detachment from what the world may define as winning. If you’re mission is to build or preserve wealth, you assess risk differently than if your mission points to giving wealth away or making people healthier or changing some great social ill. There are risks on both sides of this equation. We can become chained to any mission and our human nature is drawn to attachment. The good things of this world can enslave us as completely as the bad. My point here is that the fears holding us back stem from our sense of risk formed in our perspective on purpose.

Make no mistake, there is great responsibility in the call to properly steward the gifts one is given. Risk taking must be a result of prudent discernment of the why and the what of anything we’re called to steward. The freedom comes in detaching from simply protecting one’s stuff to assenting to a purpose for things that goes beyond self-gratification or security. Here, risk is relative.

What might we do if we knew we couldn’t fail? Put another way, one might ask: what would we do if we defined success differently? Freedom comes in seeing the game and our purpose in it differently. In this way, we come to see freedom not as doing whatever we want, but seeing clearly what is proper and fitting, and being able to do what we ought.

Consider today the addictions, attachments, or fears that may be limiting your freedom. There is a hierarchy and the most destructive entrapments must be addressed first. However, a bit of reflection may reveal that there are less obviously destructive attachments and fears that may be restricting your freedom. Linger on those attachments and fears for a while this week and ask yourself, what game are you playing? Then, what game do you want to play?

There’s no telling what we’ll do when we’re free.