What Does Freedom Mean to Me?
Earlier this week, I watched Man vs. Debt founder Adam Baker speak at TEDxAsheville. For those who have not seen this lecture, I highly recommend taking a listen.
During the course of his keynote, Adam brought up a great question that him and his wife asked themselves following the birth of their first daughter: What does freedom mean to me?
Adam and his wife asked themselves this question because they felt like their life was being lived on a script that didn’t belong to them. They were new parents who were thousands of dollars in consumer debt and were looking to take on more in the form of a mortgage loan — yet they didn’t feel fulfilled by any of the “things” that they were acquiring.
So they asked themselves, what does freedom mean to me?
After months of conversation, their answer was simple: Sell all their stuff and go backpacking (toddler in tow) through Australia for the next year.
Albeit a tough one, this decision allowed them to essentially hit the ‘restart’ button on their financial lives and start completely fresh.
They were free from the debt that had weighed them down 12 short months before. And that freedom meant that they could start their newborn’s life off free and clear of the financial disaster that had weighed them down.