The older I get, the less certain I become about what freedom really means.

We’re taught that happiness looks a certain way: get a good job, own a home, buy a car, follow the path, fit into society. There’s nothing wrong with those things. They can be beautiful. But they become dangerous when we stop asking whether they are our definition of happiness or someone else’s.

Every time we stop questioning, every time we hand over our ability to think critically, we give away a little of our freedom.

I don’t have the answers.

I question this almost every day.

I look at the world around us, and I’m saddened. Saddened that we can witness people being harmed and feel afraid to help because we fear becoming the next target. If fear dictates what we do, are we truly free? If we can comfortably return home, turn on our favorite show, and forget what we witnessed outside, is that freedom?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that my relationship with material things has changed. The need to own more, to accumulate more, to belong to the mainstream idea of success no longer feels like freedom to me.

The moments when I feel most alive are surprisingly simple.

Standing in the ocean.

Being surrounded by nature.

Loving a dog, where nothing is expected in return.

Those moments ask nothing of me except that I am present.

I’ve also met people who taught me difficult lessons. Not only what love is, but what love isn’t. Not only what truth sounds like, but how easily we can mistake someone else’s version of truth for our own. They taught me what fear feels like, what anxiety feels like, and why peace is something worth protecting.

Today, my definition of freedom is much smaller than it once was.

Freedom is not attached to an outcome.

Freedom is having the space to pause before life sweeps me away and ask myself one honest question:

Does this feel right?

More and more, that question feels like the freest place I know.