Nigar Sultana

ENG 1121 – D349

Professor Sarah Schmerler

March 3, 2019

Freedom is power

Freedom is power. However, it can be defined in many ways. People take the choice of freedom in different ways. Some people take it as power, some people take it as just a choice of life. For me, freedom means having no difficulty in life. It is quite different and difficult for me to choose freedom as a choice. Because of coming from different culture and background, I must say that I have to think twice before enjoying freedom in my life. From the dictionary definition- Freedom is power to act, speak or think. I think this is not enough to describe about freedom. Sometimes not having the chance to talk, act or think by ownself is a different kind of freedom too. I think that not having enough freedom in life is more beneficial than having all the rights to speak, act and think. Having too much chance to expose our thoughts can be destructive in life.

I am 22 years old married woman from Bangladesh. I use woman here because I am married and I am old enough to use “girl” beside my name. This is my freedom of choice to introduce myself to the world. I could use “I am a young lady who is married for 2 years”, but I didn’t. It is because I am used to hear this “woman”, “married” words in my life for last 2 years. I was young when I was in Bangladesh, I didn’t have freedom to choose anything except choosing things from my parents options. I feel that life was beautiful when I didn’t have freedom; life was beautiful when I was stuck in between my parents choice. They knew what I should do, they knew where I should go. I didn’t have freedom to use any kind of gadget and social media (even though if I used then they knew the information about my social media account). This restriction made me responsible about my duties and taught me importance about time. I was aware about my homeworks and assignments, I was on time in class, I was afraid that bad grades would make my parents upset. All I knew was making my parents happy by following their instructions. But honestly, I never felt that I need freedom. I was happy with my restricted life.

After came to New York, I started using mobile phone at the age of 18 and I discovered a lot of new things. I started going to high school all by myself and my parents were not worried about me for this anymore. I don’t know why, but this made me so upset. I missed my concerned mother who used to drop me to school in the morning and pick me from school in the evening. Day by day, they also stopped asking me about my class test, attendance and my grades too. It was more pathetic for me, because their concern always gave me inspiration to do better in school. I was missing my past life back to my country. One day I decided to talk with them about it. Then my father replied that I have the freedom to do anything here except getting involved in any unusual thing or person. It didn’t satisfied but still I didn’t have any choice to argue with him.

On February, 2017 I got married. This was my choice. There are several reasons to choose getting married so early for me. My older sisters got married lately at the age between 29-30. But I choose to get married because at one point I realized I can’t live life without any restrictions or instruction. I needed a guardian and a supporter too. It’s not that my parents do not support me. I wanted someone will show me the right path, someone who can listen my thoughts and help me to choose right thing, someone who will tell me what is wrong for me and what is right for me. I am lucky that I got someone in my life whom I was looking for. Many people might say they don’t like others to interfere in their life but I choose to do the opposite. I wanted to share my life with someone who can guide me. My husband doesn’t control me or push me to do anything. He just show me the how to do such things. Also, he takes my opinion when he takes any decision or when he is lost. So, this was my freedom of choice for not getting too much freedom. I am still learning a lot of new thing because of this and I am happy with this decision.