The Real Cost Of Freedom

Janis Joplin many times sang the mournful lyrics “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose” back in the ‘60s, and well she knew the cost of freedom. It was in the price of what she gave up…not what anyone took. She never really had freedom, despite her fame and convoluted fortune, and that’s what she was saying. I know this because my business partner at the time was her best friend, and she was with her until the end.

The Cost Of Freedom Blog is about how we’ve all lost our freedom by our collective choice of attitude. We might be free to drive around and do a lot of things freely, but few people seem to know how much we’ve given up to be “free,” and what that’s costing them…and us as a society. Our prisons and jails are full of people who know the pain of that lost freedom, but the fact is few of them had it to begin with. The same is true to a less dramatic but no less impactful way about many of the rest of us who live in prisons of a different kind.

But it’s not just that, by any means. It’s much more positive than that. It’s about how we take steps to get that freedom back…again by our choice of attitude, and by our willingness to tell the truth and be accountable for our thoughts, words and actions––how we learn to respect one another, and our individual cultures, gender and personal circumstances.

The photo above depicts freedom to me, both in an energetic, visual sense, and in a more personal sense. I twice flew a light plane over that bridge, once when it was enshrouded in thick fog and only a few skyscrapers (literally) poked through the layers of Walt Disney clouds, and again later on in her famous “golden glow” at sunset. Many years later, I stood under her with a group of my closest friends celebrating a breakthrough moment in my life. I had just addressed a luncheon of the members of the San Francisco Yacht Club on the subject of the meaning and true value of personal freedom, as one who served 2 1/2 years in federal prison, and whose federal prosecutor later wrote the Foreword to a book I authored. Behind me in the distance as I spoke to this esteemed body of accomplished people…was Alcatraz.

This Blog Site is about Personal Freedom, and I’d like to focus on those who have done time on either side of the fences and walls. It is my desire to explore ways and exchange ideas and principles of understanding how we create a better, more effective and truly correctional system of criminal justice. If we can make even a 15% positive change, the impact on society overall will be huge. Imagine what it could be like if we could make that 50%. We can. We just have to think…and act…differently. I know, “easier said than done”…but we have to start somewhere. Why not start with ourselves?

Don Kirchner ReturnToHonor.org

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Fearstorms



These are either the “best of times” or the “worst of times,” as Charles Dickens wrote in his Tale of Two Cities, depending upon how you choose to look at them…”choose” being the operative word. It’s all a matter of choice, really, even if you’re broke and facing a foreclosure, in how you deal with that dilemma. What will ultimately come of it depends entirely on how you choose to handle it.

If you have a bad attitude about what’s going on these days, you’re going to have some pretty bad times ahead…even if the economy should happen to turn around and real estate values go back up again. Your health and sense of well-being also will likely be affected negatively, and the worse you feel about any of that, the worse it will get. If, on the other hand, you look for something good and decent in everything that happens…even the “bad” things…they will improve. Pollyanna was right…and now is the ideal opportunity to put her philosophy to the test. I have, and I can assure you that I’m well-qualified by now to tell you that it’s true.

A man I know fairly well runs a series of very large entrepreneurial training forums, and at one point he portrays in a very convincing way the nature of what he refers to as “fearstorms.” He uses film clips from “Jurassic Park” and a couple other very convincing movies to demonstrate how even the most seemingly menacing situations are just mental and emotional anticipation of things not always real. We make them real by fearing and resisting them. That’s not to say that what’s going on the world right now isn’t real, but rather it emphasizes the importance of taking charge of our lives and finding better, more effective ways of dealing with both real and imagined threats to our well-being. WE get to choose how we feel about it…and our history books, movies, books and many personal stories of overcoming adversity in the world confirm over and over that we can not only get through difficult times, we can grow stronger in the process.

Find ways to feel better, love more, laugh a bit and trust yourself to make it through any challenge, and to do so with courage, honesty and integrity, and no matter what the difficulty may be that you face, you can and will get through it. Hate it, twist around it, deny it or manipulate people to help you get around it, and times will get harder for you. Accept it, deal with it, be honest about it and find ways to be kind and loving with those around you, and the best of times will surely be upon you…no matter what dark clouds may be out there.

They’re only fearstorms.

Don Kirchner

http://ReturnToHonor