Lately I've been hearing a lot of people talking about freedom, especially because of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. We live in a period of extremely important changes in human behavior, a time when people have been reflecting more on respect for themselves and others.
Freedom can be understood in different ways and there are different types of freedom, but one of the types that I would like to focus on right now is the one related to ethics, because this is about everything we do that can affect other people.
Many people think that freedom is just doing what they want, at the time and in the way they want. Is this called freedom or lack of responsibility and respect? If a person lives on top of a mountain, alone and without depending on absolutely anything or anyone for everything he wants to do and if that is his life goal, maybe that can be called freedom. However, if she lives with her family, surrounded by people with whom she works and interacts, perhaps this will no longer be called freedom, because her way of doing things interferes with the lives of those around her and it is precisely at that point. that ethics would be disrespected.
Mario Sergio Cortella says: “Ethics is the set of values ​​and principles that I use for my conduct in the midst of society, that is, what are the principles for me to act… This set of values ​​is built by some social institutions, such as family and school.”
In this way, ethics shows us that freedom is closely related to responsibility, because my actions cannot harm or disrespect other people.
Freedom can also be related to thought, which is the thinker's domain and does not break laws.
Mahatma Gandhi has an interesting phrase about this. He said, "You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy my body, but you will never imprison my mind."
When I thought of writing about “freedom, discipline and responsibility”, my desire was to bring a reflection on the need for discipline that freedom demands, because to think that we can do anything, without commitment, is incoherent. It takes discipline to achieve a goal. It is necessary to think, plan and act to achieve what you want and, once the objective is achieved, we can speak of freedom, because until then we were stuck in the achievement of this objective. It is important to say that without organizing ideas and time, the realization of projects does not happen.
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Another thing to think about is how much we like responsibility. Normally, we want distance from everything that demands or demands a date, an answer, a commitment. We want the other's commitment, but do we offer the same? Here's a reflection for all of us.
Freedom requires discipline and responsibility. I close with part of the lyrics of “Há Tempos”, by Renato Russo, performed by the band Legião Urbana: “… discipline is freedom, compassion is fortitude, having kindness is having courage…”
