Freedom Blog

Monday, February 27, 2012

15 Minutes to Freedom

No Limits | The Freedom Blog


15 Minutes to Freedom

Written by Steven Griggs | stevengriggs.com

“If you can’t leave for the airport in 15 minutes, you’re not free”
Stuart Wilde


My mother has recently become a bit of a sensation on Youtube (more about that later).

I was looking at her most recent video when I happened upon a short one minute video by Stuart Wilde.

I’ve read most of Stuart’s books and I spent a couple of weeks with him back in 1999 cruising around southern England and Ireland. That was an amazing trip.

I consider Stuie an important teacher of mine. He has helped me immensely.

In the video he was talking about how most people are trapped in an unseen prison, a matrix and that if you can’t leave for the airport in 15 minutes, you’re not free.

He is referring to the prison in which a person lives a life that consists of a continual and never ending feeding.  A life within which we are so shut down and blinded that we never see what is really going on.

We are lost in a zombie like trance, feeding the hunger of a never ending quest for bigger and better homes, cars, and things.

It’s not our fault. We’re born into it, into the tribal emotion of our people. But our culture is changing and its people have become less and less self-reliant and more dependent.

We are beginning to have a mindset of entitlement and a willingness to accept more control. We exchange our freedom for the comfort of our prisons…..

But what Stuart is really saying is: can you just get up and go? I mean drop everything and go?

Not too many of us could.

But I think there are degrees of freedom.

By freedom I really mean self-determination, having no one to answer to. Living how you wish, where you wish, going where ever you want, whenever you want, just living life on your own terms. Being free.

Generally, living this type of lifestyle requires three things:  that you have adequate funds, be self-employed and have a low overhead.

Meeting these requirements is not possible for most people.

Therefore I feel that, although Stuart’s 15 minute idea is the ultimate goal, below that there are other levels of freedom.

For instance, could you leave for the airport with a 24 hour notice?

Or would you need a week’s notice or maybe a 6 month notice?

Or would you not need any notice at all as you couldn’t really even go to the airport……?

The idea here is to look at your life and see it in the context of being trapped. I’m not saying trapped in the negative sense where it is painful or uncomfortable, because this prison is not uncomfortable. It is extremely comfortable. Secure, consistent and….. hypnotizing.

The freedom I refer to is so free that it would be really scary for most people…..

They wouldn’t know what to do.

But how would it feel to not have a boss to answer to? To not have to stay on the money treadmill to just make the payments on your “life”?

How about not having to spend 10 hours a day just earning enough money to make your payments, so you can spend 2 hours a day driving the car you don’t own, to the job you dislike, to make the payments on the house you don’t own, so you can eat, watch a little TV and go to bed…. and then get up and do it exactly the same way the next day…..?

Forgive me if I seem excited…..I get a little passionate about this subject.

What can you do to move towards more freedom and away from control and restriction? Restriction that comes from the financial needs you have obligated yourself to, that you’ve collateralized your life to?

What steps can you take to throw off the weight of things and make room for more freedom?

The way I see it is that we are all on our own individual journey. Sometimes being hypnotized and on the treadmill is what we need to experience in this lifetime.

But if you’re like me, I don’t do treadmills and I can’t stand restriction.

I’m working towards the 15 minutes notice.