Illusion of a Free Will

We're free to do whatever we desire. We have a free will—or
do we?

How free is our will? Are we able to decide what are we going to do tomorrow? We can plan things but we cannot always guarantee that things are going to turn out the way we have planned. Other things can happen. So where is the free will?

Even if we forget the future and just focus on our behavior I'm not sure that we have any freedom at all. Pick a situation that could happen in your life. How do you think you will behave? What kind of decisions do you think you will make in this situation?

For example, you're in a traffic jam and already late for a meeting. No big deal. You have been in the situation before. How do you act? Do you behave differently every time? Most likely not. You just follow the pattern or habit you have mechanically repeated time after time. You react. Even if the situation is a brand new one for you, you still have an idea of how you will act in the moment when it happens. We are stuck with our own thinking and perceptions of the world. We are dragging our past with us, and it ties us to the behavior patterns and sets the limits to our freedom of choices. How free is a will that cannot innovate and create new dynamic responses every moment? Repeating old formulas does not sound so free after all. Couples who have been together for a long time know what each other will say or do beforehand—each has learned the other partner's thinking pattern. Very original and free, indeed.

Free will is an illusion. From the outset, it looks like everything is possible. By observing the issue more carefully, though, we start to realize that the true freedom of will is mainly limited to our point of view (perception)—how we take the events that occur in our lives. Are we sad, disappointed, angry, frustrated, and so forth?

Next time you're late for a meeting and traffic is really jammed, instead of getting red and speeding around, try catching yourself in the middle of getting angry and just change your behavior. No point getting angry—you're already late. You cannot reverse the clock. Why not be in a good mood and instead enjoy the ride. This will be less stressful, and you might even avoid a ticket. Sounds more free to me. The trick is to keep this new perception going—all the time. Don't follow the old thinking formulas every moment—be awake. If you do this, you might even do something unpredictable, fresh.