philosophy term paper 3

8/14/2019 Philosophy Term Paper 3

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Jonathan Boda

November 16, 2009

Tipping the Scale: Making a Choice with Your Spiritual

Freedom

Is the human personality a complex combination of the choices a

person makes in life?

One commonly held viewpoint in life is that all people are born

with free will (freedom of choice) and today I expect to show how.

Who we are and who we want to be are the results of every choice we

make in life.

Our lives may be presented as fate yet the whole course of our

life depends on each choice we make. Frankl examines this aspect

within his discussion of spiritual freedom. He constantly reminds

readers of how people chose to hold on to their fond memories and

thus retain their personalities. He describes how their choice to hold

on allowed them to survive with humor, philosophy, and art. By

choosing to hold on and to survive, they were able to live longer and

persevere. Then later when the concentration camp is rescued the

head doctor chose to leave Frankl and his friend in the camp, because

of that decision they survived and the doctor died. We aren’t just the

result of our own choices but also the choices of others. This is where

we can gain “inspiration” from. The reaction we have to others’



actions and our environment are called triggers. But triggers can be

ignored just like we can ignore making the right choices. We all see

triggers in daily life. A twenty-five year old woman had two kids, one

eleven and one four, was fighting a custody battle versus the father.

She would come to work everyday high or drunk, she showed a lack of

responsibility and so we had to fire her. She began doing more lethal

types of drugs. Her children soon said that they didn’t want to even

live with her anymore. It was then that she sobered up. In one day

she quit smoking drinking and doing drugs. It was commendable. She

had ignored losing her job because it simply wasn’t a strong enough

trigger. The sorrow of this is she died a week after that, her heart

failed as she was walking with her kids in a neighborhood park. In a

way, watching her turn around and her untimely death provided a

trigger to several of my co-workers who had less than savory habits.

Triggers are not simply just one type of event. To every person there

is a different trigger. If our response to a trigger is not strong enough

we will not make that choice to change. Our spiritual freedom cannot

thrive unless we learn to respond to our triggers. By this we learn

things to help us develop a more balanced existence.

To revisit the topic of triggers, often the most random

experiences may provide for change. Can pure curiosity be the

solution to our hesitance? When people are curious they will try to

resolve that curiosity. Can we honestly say that we wouldn’t want to



know? The issue is that people now do not act on that curiosity;

people now are too lazy to act on it.

Our life is not predetermined. We do not live according to fate.

Fate is when you do not have a choice to react. We will always have a

choice. The choice in purity is life and death. That is the most basic

form of choice. We can decide to cope or we can give in and give up.

Our spiritual freedom in present in this too. By choosing to remain

alive we show that we will not be forced into a choice; that we choose

to retain our freedom versus allowing ourselves to be controlled. An

ever-present example of our freedom is the legal system. We are

permitted to choose our representation, we are allowed to choose what

to fight for, and we are allowed to choose to appeal a sentence we feel

is unjust. We have been raised with and guaranteed these rights and

we have seen others use these rights as they should. But why won’t

we do the same with our spiritual freedom? What does it take for us to

recognize the importance of this gift we have? What does it take for us

to recognize how much we have to think and work to protect our “God

given right” to a freedom of choice? It is true we can choose to

relinquish our power to choose but either way you must choose to do

so, it can never be forcibly taken from us. The only time we may lose

the power of choice is in death, and death is simply the last result to

your last choice.



In all honesty I look at this world with disappointment, and I view

myself as part of this disappointing lifestyle. Every day, millions of

people choose to exist in a cultural and a philosophically ignorant

society. We allow ourselves to become the test dummies of the

electronics industry simply by continuing to rely on our cell phones,

laptops, and general household electricity. When was the last time you

sat down to write a letter without using your computer? And is it not

bad enough that we must always have electronic stimulation but we

choose to combine several different devices into one in order to

“increase the number of tools available to you”? Do you simply choose

to ignore the obvious issues here? Do you simply cope with the

understanding that we cannot “excel” by societal standards unless we

surrender our freedom to the idol of our generations? If we could

utilize electricity for our benefit, such as in science and health and

diplomacy, while avoiding the resulting dependence on it would we

find it to be worthwhile? Of course, but that would require us to

choose to be self regulatory instead of lazy. Ever heard the saying

“the best defense is a good offence”? Well to gain freedom we must

sacrifice. Can we sacrifice comfort in order to preserve our

independence or our freedom? I simply cannot fathom living without

electricity, without it I would likely become more responsible and more

social and definitely more physically enduring. If I could choose to

uphold my spiritual freedom I would find myself becoming healthier in



all aspects of life. Every choice we have made (this is including all

humanity) has made us what we are now. People who were removed

from our bad choices have led lives that develop a balanced existence

which is more spiritually fulfilling than our nowadays American who

chooses to let his phone do the work for him or the European who lets

his computer write his own doctorial thesis. Of course these people

still make choices, but we have allowed for our most important

decisions to be decided for us. I would issue a challenge here, saying

that all people should choose to live life well, and we should choose to

make our own life what it is, and we should all choose to look back in

thirty years after making that choice to see how far we have come. In

thirty years if we cannot control technology instead of vice versa then

all I’ll be able to say is that my choices have made my life. If my

choice leads me to exist in hell for the remainder of eternity then my

choice is clear; to get to hell I need to reject the gift god gave, I need

to reject Frankl’s unspoken advice, I need to reject my free will. Life is

the result of every choice you make, by choosing to give up free will

(spiritual freedom) then life becomes meaningless. By choosing to

hold on to freedom you set your life along the path to eternal

happiness and satisfaction, regardless of results. For if the journey is

enlightening, should we complain about the ending?

philosophy term paper 3

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