revised journal

FREEDOM : TO WHAT EXTENT ?

In today’s world, there is almost no-one who has never heard the word ‘FREEDOM’. Freedom, when we look up for its meaning in dictionary, is “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action”,yet its actual meaning -what we call ‘connotative meaning’ in linguistics- varies from person to person. That’s because freedom is one of the main concerns of all human lives, and its meaning is a very controversial issue.

The controversions over the extent of freedom changes from person to person. While some people think freedom means being free to share their ideas,some people perceive it as being able to do whatever they want. Also,some people think that being tolerant to other people’s ideas means being free. For example;when I was at high school,one of my favourite teachers told us in the lesson a saying that “I do not agree with you,but I will defend your right of sharing your ideas all the time.” Since then,I began to realize that we all need to respect to each other, and in order for us to learn to do this,we should learn how to look at the life from different perspectives, no matter how hard it is to do so. It is hard because people have the feeling of devoting themselves to one opinion, idea, belief .. etc. and defending their ideas all the time. This is a qualification that everyone in this world has. This is the reason why we always see people having argument, sometimes compromises, yet most of the time fights with each other. The reason why people have fights with each other is that they have the tendency to make the people around them look at the life from the same perspective as theirs. Therefore, when they are not able to make people accept their ideas,they start to have an argument,disagreements,conflicts,frictions and then fights..

 Then,what if we pay attention not to hurt each other or try compromising instead of fighting? We have to do this immediately because the world is becoming more unbearable each passing day. Also,the biggest impact is on us and we can save ourselves only by looking for ways of compromises. All in all, freedom –for me- is being tolerant to each other;therefore,being able to share all ideas anywhere and at any time. Thus, people should look for the ways of extending the restrictions that prevent people from sharing their ideas.