what to do with freedom once we have it

Hello, reader.  How are you?  I’m thinking about what to do with freedom once we have it.  A lot of people are miserable, working for pay or not.  On a park-maintained path or off-roading.

I’m happy to have freedom.  I’m unfortunate to be disabled, but very fortunate to have a life without paid working.  Freedom is my favorite core value, and I love it.  But to enjoy freedom, we have to be free in our minds too.

I escaped the tyranny of diet culture.  It was so much work, to shed shame and learn to love my body, while doing health on my terms.  Holding onto my own power and seeing myself as valid is continual.  Over and over again, I say no to a culture telling me being thin is good, and anything else is undesirable and irresponsible.

It could be fatness or thinness–it could be addiction.  It could be something horrible you did a long time ago.  Whatever it is making you hate yourself, I would make an effort to find it, and somehow defuse the bomb that keeps blowing up in your face on a daily basis.

Laughing at shame and body-hate is Advanced.  I’m happy, and that would be enough.  But talking about it and loving my disabled, fat body publicly it is an honor.  I model self-love all day, and nothing can take that away.  Thank you for showing up to read about it, reader.

what to do with freedom once we have it

I have heard people say, “Ah, I’m free!  What should I do now.  I know–I’ll go fishing!”

So some people make fishing their life.  Or they fish a few times, realize they don’t like it as much as they used to, and are bored.  They can go blind and have no way of baiting the hook or driving to the aqueduct.

Or they say, I know–I’ll bake bread.  So they bake bread for a while then get bored of it, or develop a wheat sensitivity.  Or gardening, but then they get sick and the garden dies, and they are too discouraged to try again.  So they watch crappy tv instead and complain to their dog.

A lot of people have grandchildren and live for them, but grankids can move away.  Or there can be huge family drama that means they lose contact.

I’m thinking partly about retirement.  I have the cliche in my head that people suffer decades with paid work and wait for retirement.  They plan to sail their boat all the time, bee keep, hunt, make dolls by hand, golf all the time, or whatever.

But then they die.  So it was so much work for nothing, no rest and fun at the end, but the ultimate rest of death.

how to be happy

Oh wow–I just wrote a subject heading “how to be happy” as if I were going to explain to the world how to be happy, in a blog post.  Sounds ambitious, Laura-Marie.

The main part of how to be happy that I could explain is:

Don’t hate anyone.  Not your worst enemy, not someone who cheated or violenced you, not even yourself.  Don’t hate yourself is probably the best advice I could give anyone, because if you hate anyone, it’s probably going to be you.  Even if you think it’s someone else, it’s you in disguise.