Great reading your story: The Diverse Faces of Freedom, Janin Lyndovsky.

Your story shared the certain yings and yangs of freedom. It is always a story of security vs risk. Sometimes when there is no other choice, it makes it easier to risk. But this moment may never happen to most people, so they have to choose uncomfortableness to reach their goals. Harder as you are older, because you know the pains of things going wrong very intimately.

I pride myself to live in the US, where starting a business is encouraged and relatively easy. And even failing can be painful but not considered failure.

"Life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is still a foundation of the founding of the country. The pursuit of happiness is the only guarantee, not happiness itself. This is what is wished for all democracies in the world. But it can be very confusing to many.

Sadly, this can be forgotten as people demand government provide guranteed happiness which tends to perpetuate victimhood. And yes, on the one hand, government support (to a point) contributes to quality of life.

But too much government eats aggressively away at freedom. It always must be guarded against. At the end of the day, it is up to the people to be watchful of overreach of those voted to serve and choose a world that supports creativity, intiative, self-will, independence. And most importantly, the freedom to succeed or fail by self-inititative, collaboration, will power, and hard work.

This is not the easy path. Yet, it is the one I am most proud to have found.

Thanks for your writing. Am following. Best. MfB