Having grown up in India which is heavily influenced by western ideals and having lived in US for a bit, the idea of freedom is sacred to me. We all want freedom of expression, of speech, of desire. Freedom is the ideal to strive for. Or so the western philosophy goes to a great extent. If anything, freedom of speech might be the defining criteria of what differentiates western world from the others.

I am a big believer in freedom. After all, no one wants to be bound in what they can think or do. That would be a harsh world to live in.

However in the recent years I have started seeing the other side of this coin as well. As a famous free-market quote goes, “There is no free lunch”. There is a cost to everything: either visible or hidden. So it should be with freedom right, I wondered. How can freedom be a perfect ideal and there should be no downside to it. That got me thinking and eventually I realized there are certain costs associated with idea of perfect freedom that we do not see.

The idea to think about these costs was to equip myself to make better decisions instead of being swayed at all times to strive towards maximum freedom. The other reason was to be more aware of what my freedom actually costs me. By seeing the costs, I know better than to do everything a life of freedom affords me.

The simplest way to explain the cost of freedom is to use Newton’s law of physics: for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I am free to jump into a fast moving river, in fact it is perfectly within my freedom to do so. However I will be subject to the laws of physics and I might be carried away or drown. I am free to run into a wall but I will have to face the consequences of running into a barrier.

Obviously these are very extreme examples so let me give more examples that might be relatable. I want the freedom to wake up late. However the hours that I ended up sleeping extra is still time that has gone away. I cannot be unhappy at not having enough time if I choose to exercise the freedom of waking late.

I have the freedom to live anywhere in the world (immigration permitting). However I will have to accept the cost of living by the law of that country. I have the freedom to drink every variety of alcohol I want to but my liver will have to pay the costs eventually.

I want the freedom to be comfortable and not wear uncomfortable masks but then I have to pay the cost (i.e the risk of exposing myself to COVID). If I want the freedom of people not stealing my property, to live a life without constantly being afraid of theft, I have to pay the cost of following laws myself. And one of those laws might be to wear a mask.

Hence, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot have only the freedom and no costs. That is not how the world works. However our world tends to give us an illusion that freedom is the ultimate free entity with no costs associated with it. We end up considering freedom as a right that we all have without any costs or duties associated with it. We tend to believe that we are free to walk in the middle of busy highway and have the freedom to not be hit. Once again, that is not how the world works. If you walk into the middle of a highway, it is your free right. But someone will hit you and that is the cost of freedom.

The next time you are confronted by a decision around what is acceptable in the name of freedom, think about the costs you are willing to pay.