Freedom

“Freedom isn’t about being able to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it. Freedom is about being able to choose and then act toward what is good. It is about the opportunity to grow toward one’s telos—the Greek word which means ‘purpose’ or ‘maturity’ or ‘goal’—for which you’ve been created. Freedom means both a lack of external coercion that prevents you from moving toward your telos, but also a lack of internal coercion that prevents you from moving toward your telos as well.”

~Excerpt from The Sacred Year by Michael Yankoski

“It should be accepted as a most elementary human and moral truth that no man can live a fully sane and decent life unless he is able to say ‘no’ on occasion to his natural bodily appetites. No man who simply eats and drinks whenever he feels like eating and drinking, who smokes whenever he feels the urge to light a cigarette, who gratifies his curiosity and sensuality whenever they are stimulated, can consider himself a free person. He has renounced his spiritual freedom and become the servant of bodily impulse. Therefore his mind and his will are not fully his own. They are under the power of his appetites.”

~Thomas Merton