Permission, Program, Pearl

Gisselle Gomez
English 1121 – E115
Professor S Schmerler
March 4, 2019

Permission, Program, Pearl

Freedom is many different things to different people. It’s about being at ease to do and reach your own potential without any of life’s day to day hindrances. To some it is liberating or a second chance. To others it is overwhelming, an endless choice of options too vast to explore or to begin to comprehend. Some believe that freedom is more of a chaotic good and that constraint pertains to the mind and spirit rather than the physical state. Malcolm X’s autobiographical excerpt recounts that his experience of being in a physical constraint [prison] never made him feel less free. If anything, being confined helped him find his way into books and knowledge, his route to freedom. Freedom is permission to live without self-restraint regardless of constraint.
In my experience, finding freedom is a continuous challenge. Following high school and going into the “real world” , I find freedom to be exasperating. What I refer to is that the lack of regime leaves me with many possibilities. As children we are conditioned into our young adulthood when to do things and how-to act of a certain manner. No longer having everything laid out but now with full rein of my own decisions and time. In my adulthood there is the recurring theme of time management. The eternal quest to finding the time to go to school, work a full time job, have an active social life.
The necessary chore of taking classes, graduating and obtains a degree or two or three. If and when I have the time to take them in addition to the time of following through with the corresponding assignments. In high school I had a lot of structure to work with. Now it does not exist. I have noticed that this new freedom makes me feel wary. I feel cautious with lack of structure or guidance and it makes me doubt if my writing is “right”. As grade school students we are programed to write for an objective grade. Therefore structures and rules were something I leaned onto for grading survival. Without this, freedom is a new concept I must accustom to in this brave new world of written word.
In my personal life its creating the right sort of balance that agrees with my social relationships . The one most important being the relationship with myself. Finding freedom in means of peace of mind is a difficult thing I’ve challenged myself continually to accomplish. I suffer from what may be an acute form of depression that, redundantly, creeps up and strikes in passing moments. My denial to be properly diagnosed is possibly the very reason I state this. With all the light mental illness has received in the past years it is common to say , or rather ask: “Who hasn’t experienced the swinging motions of depression? Or battled with the inner voice we hear inside our head that beats a negative tone to which we carry out our day”. Anxiety. That which I have grown to call it and give it a name. To name it is to give it a space and recognize its existence. Once we do that, we can find a way to analyze an issue, a problem, and ultimately treat it. Freedom is acknowledging all of the above and figuring out the next step to becoming a better , happier you. In light of this, I’ve recently made changes to my home environment in hopes to better my overall mental wellbeing. I decided out with the dulled out seafoam green color that’s covered my walls for the past decade. In its place appears a serene polished pearl cream color that welcomes tranquility. They say that sight and smell are our two strongest senses. With the visual appearance of my room changed I went ahead and bought aromatherapy candles to appease the other sense. Lavender and cedarwood. Freedom of the mind is the soul seeking solace…. to the scents of Bath and Body Works.
Something that I have had to teach myself to do is to accept help. To take the weight off of myself and let another assist me when I’m drowning in the pressure. To let myself be taught. As well as accept that I don’t know everything and admit I am only human. That’s it okay to let someone in and help you unwind yourself from this tight coil of anxiety. This concept of finding freedom is a continual endeavor I aspire to achieve. I see it as the state of fully having a grasp of your surroundings so that it all works together effortlessly.