Freedoms

I have witnessed many conversations where the topic was on some kind of freedom that we do not have enough of, we are supposed to have that we do not, or on not having the freedom from kids such as young adults, teenagers, and pre-teens. I don't think it matters how much freedom we do have, most people will always have something to complain about. We have a lot more freedom that we take for granted than people in other countries. I never thought about how much more freedom we have and how much freedom others do not have like being free to be unique.

A lot of newspaper articles, magazine articles, and what I have seen on the news in the past, have been on freedom of speech. This surprises me because we are free to say what we want, to who we want, but there are also boundaries that some people should think twice about crossing.

Another freedom people talk about a lot out where I live is the freedom to do whatever you want to on your land. I use to be a person to think, "well if it's your land, you should be able to do whatever you want with it." Then I was enlightened by a situation where some neigbors of mine had the county come by and told them they needed to clean up their yard. I always saw the mess in their yard, but didn't think much of it. It wasn't my yard. Well, I also didn't think of what may be making nests back there, with diseases, or teeth that can bite so close to my yard, where my kids play.

Also I did not understand among a lot of people, why people cannot build whatever they want to on their land. This was explained to me by a contractor who was adding an addition to my house. He explained that if someone does not know what their doing, they can build something wrong, and someone can get hurt, if an accident occurs. Easy, but I did not think about that. Now I understand why we do not have the freedom to do whatever we want to with our land. It makes sense. It is a way of ensuring safety, that some people do not think about, like me or my neighbors.

When I was a teenager, I use to complain about getting my backpack searched and use to think the NARCs, the security people, were harrassing me at school. I dressed the part, and hung out with the wrong crowd, got in a few fights, and got kicked out the classroom quite a bit. I had no problem with the way I dressed or the people I hung out with. As an adult, and now with kids of my own where one will be in highschool in two years, I understand why my backpack was being searched and why the NARCs were always on me. I hung out with a crowd that were always getting suspended for having contraband or something your not supposed to bring to school. For safety reasons, my bag, as well as theirs were searched. I was not the teacher's pet, so I understand now why the NARCs were always on me. I am an adult now and think I was just ridiculous to complain about not having these freedoms as a teenager, but when I was a teenager as much freedom as possible was fought for, even if it was ridiculous.