Terrible things happen to people because of social and political circumstances. There are people living lives that resembles hell on earth - by accident or because of circumstances no one can fully understand or explain.

By proposing that what happens to us is based on a choice we made may sound outrageous. Understand that this is not to blame people for their circumstances. Who knows really how things come about?. The point is that when we begin by taking full responsibility for our own lives, and for the choices we know that we did make, we are then empowered to move forward from whatever our experience may have been, and to open to whatever lessons are there for us in every situation. We can change. We do not need to repeat our mistakes over and over. We can grow stronger, clearer, free of blame and guilt, free of fear. We can become a 'cause' in our life, rather than an 'effect', a mere victim of circumstance.

Why personal freedom? Why not collective freedom, social freedom, economic and political freedom?

. . . Because other people’s freedom is really only an idea in your head; and because not only you, but everyone else will benefit greatly if you begin by establishing that you can be a ‘cause’ in every situation, rather than a ‘effect’. And, of course, we still always have a responsibility to respond to the world around us, to commit to make the world a better place

When you ask, “What can I learn here?” rather than concluding that someone caused something to happen to you, your whole life changes. Freedom becomes something to actualize rather than to dream about. It is no longer either personal or collective - that distinction becomes meaningless or irrelevant.