The Right to Freedom

On the 2nd of September I attended, what was largely believed to be, the event of the semester. The Engineers Breakfast is basically an event which is created to relieve some of the stress which engineers carry around with them all year round. Created for engineers but attended by mainly Bachelor of Arts students, the Engineers Breakfast has always been one of the most epic annual events held by students at the University of the Witwatersrand.

A day created for partying from 6 a.m-2 p.m flowing with lots of alcohol and of course, food! I, for one, did not expect to get as drunk as I did, but hey, freedom is an amazing thing. I did have a lecture to attend but guest lecturers aren't really exciting and besides, I got to see loads of people and meet lots of new people as well. So, the question is, should students be granted the right to unrestricted freedom? I say, hell yeah! How else are we going to learn to handle life in general? Having freedom comes with making mistakes and by making mistakes, we ultimately learn more and become more responsible. I'm a very responsible person and even though I did get really drunk, I had friends around me who took care of me, that's where responsibility comes in. Some people were getting really sick and there was no one around to help them, that's very irresponsible. If you know that you're going to be drinking to the extent of possible alcohol poisoning, you should make sure that you have at least one sober friend with you or be around responsible friends who will take care of you, even though they've had a couple of shots themselves.   

Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand, a student knows this better than anyone else. You know that you shouldn't be doing certain things such as partying the night before a test or getting drunk before attending a lecture and often, 85% of students take on this responsibility. As for the other 15%, they simply just need a shove in the right direction. University, if not high school, is supposed to teach you to be more responsible, when to have a good time and when not to have a good time, when to work and when to play. Everybody fools around in University, no doubt, even the nerdiest student, but we know when to buckle down and get our lazy butts into gear and actually work. Passing is almost inevitable if you're responsible enough to attend lectures and tuts regularly, simple as that. How responsible you actually are will determine how successful you'll be in your varsity career.

Parents who shackle their kids in high school and don't let them go out often enough are going to have real problems when their kids go off to varsity. Also, giving your kid a curfew is not going to teach them to be more responsible. My parents never ever gave me a curfew but I had enough sense to know what time to go home and that at the end of the day, it was my mom and dad who were coming to pick me up and I certainly was not going to call them at 3 in the morning. This taught me to be more responsible, not a stupid curfew. In varsity, there's no such thing as curfews or bells that ring in between lectures, the school system is no longer there, freedom is everywhere. So, parents who might be reading this, I'm not saying don't keep your kid on a leash, I'm saying expose them to the real world and let them grow up before they're so sensitised that they actually don't know the difference between the real world and their world. Varsity is a whole new experience and you certainly don't want your kid to be antisocial. 

Freedom to a student is the best thing in the world, especially to students who live in residences or in flats and students who own cars. The thing is, students are adults. Most of us can handle the great responsibilities which come with freedom. Bunking lectures or tuts is only done if you know you can afford to miss it. Bunking tuts might not be a good idea but if your lecture slides are going to be on WebCT and if you know that the lecturer is just going to stand there and repeat everything that's on the slides, you can afford to miss that one lecture but you also realise that you have to work super hard to make up for it as well. 

I love having freedom. Freedom is amazing, especially when you're 7 hours away from home and your parents aren't there to question you about your various whereabouts. It's always good though to give your parents a phone call and tell them that you're going to a party or event, which is what I still do to this day, just in case anything serious happens. That again is showing responsibility. My parents don't ever tell me not to go somewhere but in the unlikely event that they do, I will not go, because I know it's for my own safety. Lots of freedom with lots of responsibility, yes, quite amazing. 

The right to freedom is just that..a right. You can not deny anybody the right to freedom, unless you live in a communist country. Some people possess freedom with great difficulty while others handle it with ease, it just depends on your upbringing, morals and values, parents and all that jazz. Love life, love freedom, love responsibilities, it will make you a stronger person at the end of the day :)

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves"

-Abraham Lincoln

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes."

-Mahatma Gandhi

"Freedom is the oxygen of the soul."
-Moshe Dayan

The Flip Side

All of us say that we're going to do certain things before we die. We have goals and aims and dreams but we don't see the flip side of the coin. Many people think that the flip side is all about disappointment  and the failure to not make something of your life or be something great, but, ask yourself this, what if the flip side is actually about self-realisation? self-discovery? the exploration of different aspects of your life. What actually makes you the person that you are? If you discovered new things about yourself, would you change?

We rush through life. If we aren't dealing with personal matters then we're studying or working an 8am-5pm job, too busy to take note of what's actually happening around us. How many times do we stop and ask a friend if they need help? Or take notice of someone who's struggling to get ahead in life? We just simply switch off and say "Oh well, you've gotten yourself into that posistion, I can't help you, you have to deal with this on your own." The reality is that we have a responsibility to everyone and everything on this planet because like it or not, we're all interconnected. Why do doctors become doctors? To cure diseases and to treat people right? They have a responsibility to take care of their patients and make them feel better. So, in a way we're all doctors, we help each other get through life's toils and troubles. Your friends and family are your support system, take notice of them and give them the attention which they deserve because it is these people who ultimately make you the person that you are.

You only ever take note of your morals and values when you're in a situation that requires them such as giving a friend sound advice. You don't take note of your morals and values in everyday life. To all you philanthropists out there, how about actually giving that beggar on the street some coins every time you rush past him? Everyday life doesn't require us to use our morals and values. We simply get up in the morning, head out the door and are then so engrossed in our own lives that we fail to notice prejudices or hate speech which are against our morals and values. Only when we are trapped in a web of peer pressure and snide comments do we say to ourselves, "Wait a minute, this is against my morals and values". The only moral and/or value which I practice everyday is vegetarianism, because I have to, but that dirty politician or that dishonest businessman is laughing all the way to the bank simply because he forced himself to forget the morals and values which he was brought up with. The morals and values which your parents instill unto you is the basic foundation of your personality. How you choose to build upon that foundation is up to you.

Ever since technology has evolved, and continues to evolve, we have more and more crap to keep ourselves occupied with. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, etc. Then our phones have these neat little applications as well to divert our attention from what's really important. I am convinced that  Mxit, BBM, Whatsapp and various other chat applications were created to just cause more and more drama in our lives. Sure, it's a good tool to have for chatting to old friends or friends in another province but when problems arise, suddenly, it's not so much of fun anymore. All of this takes up whatever valuable time we have in our lives. Yes, it is good to chat with friends who you can't see because of distance but do we really need to spend all of our time in the day doing just that? I am guilty of this, I will admit, I LOVE the internet and Mxit and Facebook chat. What ever happened to being constructive? And not doing that assignment the night before? All of these things flew out of the window as technology has evolved and so we need to integrate the idea that time needs to be spent with friends and family on a regular basis and not just cyberspace friends, for the well being of our physical and mental state. Our life is the most precious thing that we have, so why not live it to the full?

Another thing in life which we fail to realise is that material wealth is not important. Yeah, that guy who you see everyday driving that Mercedes and wearing those expensive clothes might have everything that he needs in order to make him popular but do you think that he's happy? Do you think that he's passing all his classes? He won't get far in life and you know it. That nerd that everybody picks on? The one who wears clothes from Pep?  Yeah, the one who's less better off in other words, he's the one who will be the most successful out of everyone who picks on him. Material wealth is nothing. It means nothing. At the end of the day, it's your intellectual ability which determines who you are and who you will be. Life is way too short to worry about material wealth. As long as you are happy, nothing else matters.

In saying all of the above, I urge you to once in a while, flip the coin. Take a break from life and just focus on yourself and what makes you the person that you are. We get caught up in life and it's demands that we don't put aside time for ourselves. Self-realisation and self-discovery can be powerful things. You might want to change a few charactersitics of what makes you who you are but change is good sometimes.  We've been blessed with a beautiful thing called life, how we choose to live it is up to us.