India’s 71st Independence Day just went by. I had the proud privilege of hoisting the tricolor at a high school function. The word ‘freedom’ played hugely on my mind. I gratefully remembered the supreme sacrifice that our freedom fighters had made in India’s struggle for freedom. And then this question arose in my mind – are we really done with our ‘freedom’ struggle? The answer didn’t even take a second, in fact it didn’t even wait for the question to finish! It was a loud, resounding NO! It looked like there was another ‘me’ in there that was ready with the answer, simply waiting for this moment when such a question would arise in my mind! This alacrity caught me completely off guard. I started wondering why we still weren’t done with our freedom struggle.

As a nation we got our freedom. We were being ruled by people who were ‘foreign’ to this land. Our struggle to oust them and get back control into the hands of people native to this region is the well- deserved freedom that we got 70 years ago. Freedom is instrumental to development but then, at the same time, it is also constitutive of development. That we have sustained this developing democracy for all these years is no mean achievement. That in itself is the second step of freedom. However when we delve a little deeper and come to the individual level we are bound to realize that we really do not have ‘true’ freedom.

Most of us are slaves to certain negative emotions that right royally rule over us. Envy is one big one.
As the human stock, we are naturally interested in the lives of others. We are very curious about how others live or are presently doing. There is possibly nothing wrong with this if it were limited to a sense of admiration or appreciation. It may still be OK if it were to drive our aspirations. The problems arise when we start resenting and rejecting our own selves. That’s when we fall right into the envy trap. Why did she get the raise that she got? Why does he get this plum position? Why does she get to live in a mansion? Why am I not as handsome or beautiful? Envy is the enemy of contentment. It’s a slave to wanting more and more without taking a moment to enjoy what one has. You incessantly covet bigger and better possessions. You are hungry for more power. It pushes one in a meaningless manner.

We do need freedom from the constricting grip of such an emotion. How do we go about this ‘freedom’ struggle?
For starters, I think every one of us needs to realize that we are unique. We have our own trajectory. Hence playing the comparison game is to be avoided. You are incomparable! And so is everyone else! We always tend to think that there is a limited supply of cake. If someone gets a large piece we tend to think that this probably is the last cake – at least for a while. We need to realize that something is carved out for each one of us and that no one can take that away from us. We may be getting a larger share in some other ‘cake’ of life. An embarrassing truth about envy is that for most of the times we envy the people who are closest to us.

We need to learn to enjoy the success of others. We need to rejoice with them! When you learn to be happy with others’ achievements you would be happy all the time since someone or the other is succeeding all the time. Let’s be grateful for what we are and what we have. Having more may not necessarily make you happy. Whatever be the circumstances that we may be in nature bestows us with a choice that is completely in our control. We can choose to be happy. Exercising this choice is the true freedom that we need to work towards.