Landmark Forum Leader Insights

The path to power and freedom

By Barry Grieder

What if we were born happy, fulfilled, and satisfied; and there was no need to make it because we had it already made. And then imagine that the notion “…there’s something wrong here” was overridden by being complete and whole and satisfied. If that was the case, what would be possible with a life? Possibility is a clearing in which life occurs. Possibilities are generated. Possibility is the freedom and power to move—it’s design and intentionality kind of mixed together. We can’t stumble our way into freedom and power or have some piece of information that’s going to make us automatically go in the direction of power and freedom. But, what we do have is the opportunity to choose.

If, however, we put “possibility” into a clearing called “…there’s something wrong here,” it’s like not really trusting the possibility that we created. Instead, we need to engage with setbacks, breakdowns, and things going awry, not as obstacles that impede progress but as critical elements on the path toward power and freedom. We need to suspend familiar and default ways of approaching a situation, risking our certainty of what’s known to grapple with new ways of thinking. A possibility truly is “to be” that something is possible.