What If We’re Not as Free as We Think?

We like to believe that we're the authors of our lives. That we make all the decisions in our lives. We choose our careers, our relationships, our habits, our opinions and even the kind of people we want to become. Modern culture puts enormous emphasis on personal freedom: Be yourself. Define yourself. Choose your own path. All the personal branding is how we express it here on LinkedIn.

But how much of who we are did we actually choose? Think about the way we respond to criticism, the ambitions we have, the things we fear, the relationships we seek, or even the things we believe will make us happy. Where did these come from?

Michael Laitman's exploration of this question begins with a deceptively simple principle: nothing appears out of nowhere. Every state is the result of causes that preceded it.

What looks like a spontaneous choice may simply be the result of causes we don't yet recognize.

The Four Forces That Shape Us

To understand who we are, Rav draws on a framework from Baal HaSulam describing four factors involved in the development of everything that exists.

They can be understood simply as:

1. The foundation — what we start with.

2. The inherent laws of that foundation.

3. The internal changes produced through interaction with our environment.

4. The external forces acting upon us.

These four factors don't operate independently. Together, they produce the person, situation or reality we eventually experience. And this raises a much more interesting question than “Am I free?”

But rather - What, exactly, is determining me?

First: The Foundation We Didn't Choose

Consider a seed. You can plant a wheat seed in different fields, expose it to different weather conditions and provide different amounts of water. But you will never get an oak tree. Something fundamental is already encoded in the seed.

The same principle applies to human beings. We are born with particular tendencies, desires, sensitivities and dispositions. We don't choose our starting point. We don't choose our basic psychological architecture. And fighting against that reality may be pointless.

The more useful question is:

What can I do with what I was given?

Second: We Develop According to Internal Laws

The seed also carries an inherent direction of development. A wheat seed develops into wheat. The final form is not arbitrary. Human beings are more complicated, of course. We change dramatically throughout our lives. Our personalities, knowledge, habits and circumstances evolve. But beneath those changes are deeper patterns.

We may believe that we are freely constructing ourselves, while much of our development is actually following forces already operating within us.

We may believe that we are freely constructing ourselves, while much of our development is actually following forces already operating within us. If the starting point and the basic direction of development are determined, then where exactly does freedom enter? This is where the question becomes really interesting.

Third: The Environment Gets Inside Us

A seed doesn't develop in isolation. Soil, water, sunlight, temperature and nutrients interact with what is already inside the seed. They don't turn wheat into something completely different, but they can dramatically affect its development. Human beings work in much the same way. Our environment doesn't simply surround us. It gets inside us.

Our parents, teachers, friends, colleagues, culture, social networks, media and the people we admire all participate in shaping our desires and responses. Think about a simple example: someone receives criticism from a manager. One person becomes defensive. Another becomes motivated. A third feels humiliated. A fourth barely reacts.

The external event is the same. But the response depends on what each person already carries inside - and on the environment that has shaped those internal patterns. This is why understanding ourselves requires more than looking at our current behavior.

We have to ask: What forces created this response?

And Then Comes the Most Important Question: Choice

If our foundation is given to us, and our development follows inherent laws, and our environment continuously shapes us, then perhaps freedom isn't the ability to choose everything. Perhaps freedom lies somewhere much more specific.

We may not choose the foundation. But we can choose the environment that influences what develops from it.

This is a radically different understanding of personal responsibility. Instead of asking: “Why am I like this?”

We can ask: What am I surrounding myself with? What people am I listening to? What ideas am I repeatedly exposed to? Who influences my desires? What kind of conversations am I having? What kind of culture am I participating in? What behaviors does my environment reward?

Because if the environment is one of the forces shaping who we become, then choosing our environment isn't a minor lifestyle decision.

It may be one of the most important choices we have.

This Changes How We Think About Personal Development

We spend enormous amounts of time trying to change ourselves directly. We set goals. We build habits. We try to become more disciplined. We attempt to suppress certain behaviors and cultivate others. But maybe we should spend at least as much time asking whether the environment around us is supporting the person we want to become.

You don't have to fight the seed. You have to create the conditions in which it can develop properly. This also changes how we look at other people. Instead of immediately judging someone's behavior, we can ask: What forces produced this person? What did they inherit? What experiences shaped them? What environment are they living in now? What influences are acting on them every day? This doesn't eliminate personal responsibility. It makes responsibility more intelligent.

The Choice May Be Smaller and More Powerful Than We Think

We often imagine freedom as having unlimited options. But maybe real freedom is much narrower. We may not be able to choose our starting point. Maybe we can't rewrite every internal tendency. Maybe we can't control everything that happens to us. But we can become increasingly conscious of the forces shaping us, and deliberately place ourselves in an environment that moves us in a better direction. That is a very different definition of freedom.

Freedom may not mean becoming someone completely different from who we are.

It may mean discovering the forces that shape us and consciously choosing which forces we allow to shape who we become.

And in an age when algorithms, social media, AI and increasingly sophisticated systems are constantly competing to influence our attention, desires and behavior, this question has never been more relevant:

Who is choosing our environment - and therefore, who is choosing who we become?