Freedom as Choosing Commitments That Serve You
Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose what is best for me. — Paulo Coelho
—What lingers after this line?
One-minute reflection
What's one small action this suggests?
Redefining Freedom Beyond Emptiness
Paulo Coelho’s line begins by overturning a common assumption: that freedom means having nothing tying you down. Instead, he frames freedom as a capacity—an inner authority to select what aligns with your well-being. In that sense, the goal is not to live without obligations, but to avoid obligations that are imposed, unconscious, or self-defeating. This reframing matters because “no commitments” can easily become its own kind of trap, a life guided by avoidance rather than intention. Coelho’s definition points toward a different measure: not how little you owe the world, but how deliberately you decide what you will give your time, love, and energy to.
Choice as the Core of Autonomy
From there, the quote centers autonomy on the ability to choose, implying that freedom is less a circumstance and more a practiced skill. Even when life presents constraints—family needs, economic realities, social expectations—there is still the question of agency: what can I decide within what I cannot control? This emphasis echoes existentialist thought, where freedom is tied to responsibility. Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946) argues that we are “condemned to be free,” meaning we cannot escape choosing; even refusing to decide is itself a decision. Coelho’s twist is to aim that unavoidable choosing toward what is genuinely best for oneself.
Commitment as a Voluntary Act of Power
Once choice is foregrounded, commitments stop looking like chains and start looking like expressions of power. To commit to a craft, a partner, a cause, or a routine is to say: this matters enough to structure my life around it. Paradoxically, that structure can expand freedom by reducing drift and strengthening identity. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (c. 350 BC) helps illuminate this point through the idea of habituation: we become free to act well by building stable virtues through repeated choices. Commitments, when chosen rather than inherited blindly, can be the scaffolding that makes a person more capable—less reactive, more intentional.
Distinguishing What’s ‘Best’ From What’s Easy
However, Coelho’s phrase “best for me” raises a crucial complication: what feels good in the short term is not always what is best in the long term. True freedom may involve choosing the harder option—training rather than lounging, honesty rather than comfort, boundaries rather than approval—because those choices protect a deeper future self. A simple anecdote captures this: someone turns down a higher-paying job that would demand constant travel, choosing instead a role with fewer perks but time to care for a parent and maintain health. The decision is still a commitment, yet it is freedom in Coelho’s sense because it reflects self-knowledge rather than social pressure or impulse.
Inner Freedom Under Outer Constraints
The quote also implies that freedom can persist even when external freedom is limited. If commitments are unavoidable—debts, duties, difficult seasons—then the remaining question is whether one can still choose one’s orientation: priorities, boundaries, and meaning. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) famously argues that even in extreme captivity, a person retains “the last of the human freedoms” to choose one’s attitude. Coelho’s message harmonizes with this: the essence of freedom is not a perfectly open calendar, but a mind and heart capable of selecting the most life-giving path available.
Practicing Freedom Through Conscious Selection
Finally, Coelho’s view of freedom invites a practical discipline: regularly auditing commitments to see whether they are chosen and beneficial, or merely habitual and draining. This doesn’t mean abandoning responsibility; it means clarifying which responsibilities genuinely reflect your values and which ones are relics of fear, guilt, or performance. In practice, the path forward is incremental: say yes with clarity, say no with respect, and renegotiate when circumstances change. Over time, freedom becomes less an abstract ideal and more a lived pattern—choosing commitments that strengthen you, while releasing those that quietly make your life smaller.