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Paradoxically, our greatest moments where we feel we have abundant creativity and boundless freedom are when we specifically impose constraints on our thought, on our feelings, and our conceptions of right and wrong. A sense of freedom is primarily perceived when we are able to control our fate beyond the weight of our circumstances—when our actions directly impact the outcome of events in our lives. And when we feel trapped amidst suffering and mired in uncontrollable chaos, it is because we have lost control; it is because the floodgates of circumstance have opened, and we have little means by which to make sense of the world around us in a deluge of emotion.

Discipline equals freedom because it reflects the underlying, perpetual interplay between reason and emotion embedded within the human condition.

The hard truth to accept is that humans cannot reliably grasp the concept of truly unlimited, boundless freedom. We simply don’t know what to do with ourselves when there are an infinite number of choices to make. We crave control—not necessarily freedom.