The Freedom You Keep Postponing
Why the plan you built to escape could be the very thing keeping you trapped
Core Insight
I spent a decade chasing a “freedom plan” only to realize I was building a cage out of future-dated permissions. True freedom arrived the moment I stopped fighting my own nature and allowed myself to simply belong in the present.
This is article #7: The Need for Freeedom.
Part of a 7-Human Needs series on Why We Do The Things We Do.
If you are new here, you can start with
Need #1: Safety
Need #2: Curiosity
Need#3: Meaning
Need#4: Belonging
Need#5: Thriving
Need#6: Overflow
Need#7: Freedom (You are here)
Have you ever watched or read biographies of famous people who knew exactly what they wanted to do when they grew up and succeeded?
I was that person, except, I am not famous and I certainly don’t consider myself successful.
Back when I was 15, my school had a special internship and I was one of the lucky chosen ones. I was attached to the marketing department of a major shopping mall and you know how interns are the ones doing the grunt work? I did them but like I said, I was lucky. The big sisters in the department actually bothered to include me in their meetings with creatives, showed and explained to me how the A&P worked, what’s their vision etc.
I. WAS. HOOKED.
Marketing had been my north star ever since and I was like a dog with a bone.
I loved my job and had fantastic bosses and supportive colleagues. But I was also tired of the hustle. Every meeting, late nights, burned weekends made me crave the freedom that no money can buy but I persevered because I had a plan. A plan to retire once I had $x amount of net worth, a plan to have kids, travel the world and so on. It’s as if I knew I would have that freedom I always wanted.
The Burnout I Never Expected
I was extremely burnt out but kept going on because of the “plans” I had. That is, until my mum had the health scare that made me re-consider everything.
We all know that no one lives forever but it’s just so human nature to take our love ones for granted, until things happen out of nowhere and make you reconsider life.
I had spent decades chasing a version of freedom that lived in the future. A net worth number. A retirement age.
My Last Day in Corporate Life
When I resigned, I promised my management that I would extend my notice period as a product relaunch party was coming. So the party was also my last day.
On the day, we invited some other industry players to the party. Knowing that was my last day, some of them made very attractive offers and invited me to join their companies. To be honest, I felt bad for rejecting the offers as I was leaving a lot of money on the table.
After the relaunch party, my colleagues had a farewell party for me and by the time I reached home was well over midnight. I was so tired but instead of washing up and turning in, I sat on my sofa and took the next 30 minutes exiting every work-related whatsapp group.
It’s been almost 10 years since that day and I can still remember that feeling of exhale when I’m done. The weight on my shoulders finally lifted. The feeling of being free.
Here is the thing nobody tells you about freedom.
That exhale didn’t last long.
For the first few months of my “freedom” I was a disaster. I had no boss but I was still a tyrant to myself. I would wake up at 6am with a phantom sense of urgency. I would fill my day with productive errands because the thought of an empty calendar felt like a moral failure. I had deleted the work groups but the internal hustle script was still running in the background like a trojan horse.
I read book after book to upgrade myself and optimised my newfound freedom so that no minute was wasted.
I was still operating in Automation. My survival instincts were so finely tuned to “do” that I had forgotten how to “be.”
During those months, the questions kept coming. What are you doing now? What’s next? Are you freelancing? Starting something? I even received phone calls from ex-colleagues and ex-competitors offering me a job.
The world doesn’t quite know what to do with a person who simply chose to stop. So after some time, I decided to change my phone number so I could enjoy my freedom without having to reject job offers.
But little did I realise that I had confused freedom with escape.
The Cage We Build With Our Own Plans
There is a particular kind of unfreedom that looks incredibly responsible from the outside. It contains timelines. It has a number with a dollar sign in front of it.
I had all of that. My plan was meticulous. My plan was also, quietly, a prison.
Because a plan that says “I will be free when...” is not a plan for freedom. It is a postponement of it. You are not working toward freedom. You are trading your present self for a future self who gets to live.
The marketing intern at 15 who fell in love with creativity and ideas? She never needed a plan to feel free. She felt free the moment those big sisters let her into the room.
Somewhere between 15 and my last day in corporate life, I had replaced that aliveness with plan after plan.
What Freedom Actually Is
My dog, Toto, never planned his days.
It took watching him to understand the 7th Pillar. The way he decided to suntan just because he wanted to. He sat beside you without needing to earn his place on the sofa.
When he slept, he slept with his whole soul. When he played he was a blur of unforced brilliance without needing to perform for anyone. He was free because he had zero internal friction. He never fought his own nature.
He was the freest being I have ever known.
I used to think freedom meant having no obligations. No deadlines, no bosses, no group chats pulling you back in at 11pm.
What I know now is that freedom is the moment you stop needing external permission to know that you belong in your own life. It is the quiet confidence of a person who is no longer at war with themselves.
It is never a destination but a way of moving through the world.
Why We Fear It
The Need for Freedom sits at the end of this series for a reason. Because you cannot truly access it without the other six.
You need to feel Safe first before taking off. You need to be Curious so you can explore with depth. You need Meaning before you can act without external validation. You need Belonging before knowing you can stand alone without the fear of being abandoned. You need to be Thriving to align your actions with your inner brilliance. You need Overflow before you can give from fullness instead of fear.
Freedom is what happens when all six needs are met. Not perfectly. Not permanently. But enough.
Enough to know that you are no longer running from yourself.
The Thing I Want You to Know
If you are reading this in a season where freedom feels like a number you haven’t hit yet, I am not going to tell you to quit your job. I am not going to tell you to burn the plan.
I am going to tell you this: the weight you are carrying is not the job, the deadlines or even those dreaded group chats that won’t stop pinging.
It is the belief that you have to earn the right to be at ease in your own life.
You do not.
Stop scanning for approval. Stop rewriting your days to prove you are still valuable. Your rest does not need justification. You are allowed to move through the day without the low hum of “What else do I need to do right now?”
The exhale is always available to you. You don’t need to wait till you reach the number.
True freedom is the absence of the struggle against yourself. This is the path of least resistance. When you finally stop fighting your nature you realize that you were never a dog with a bone.
You were the brilliance all along.
Missed a step in the series?
Article #7: the Need for Freedom (You Are Here)
💡 Question: When did you first realise that the freedom you were chasing was actually a cage you built yourself? Was there a specific moment, a conversation, a breaking point?
Share it in the comments. I want to hear about it.
P.S. Creating from a place of Sanctuary requires a commitment to rest. If you’d like to support the “Unforced Brilliance” of this series, you can buy me a bubble tea. It’s a small act of participation that helps keep this space thriving.
This article is #7 in the series of 7 Human Needs – Why we do the things we do?
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You finished the series!! And it's a really good one. I know I have benefited from reading it. ❤️