rn- How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World tags: refx, #readingnotes book: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World author: Harry Browne date: September 29, 2013 12:56:31 PM --- p22: No one can tell you what identity you *should* have. But we can discuss some ways to look inside yourself to discover the identity that's naturally yours. Only then can you act consistently, purposefully, and in ways that will bring happiness to you. And every artificial identity that you cast off will bring more freedom to you. Instead of taking for granted assumptions about what you "should" be, start from the inside -- from inside of *you*. Find out who *you* are -- that unique collection of feelings, desires, perceptions, and understanding. Respect what you see in yourself. Then look at the world and decide what you can have that would ignite your nature into real happiness. And then figure out how you can make it happen. We'll discuss later some techniques of this self-exploration. If done with energy and honesty, it can be one of the most important, rewarding, and exciting tasks you can undertake. Let it all come from within you. Don't try to identify with an ideal person, a label, or a code that others think is best for you. They aren't you; they can't make your decisions for you. THE IDENTITIES OF OTHERS At the same time, you can waste precious time when you ignore the individual identities of other people. They aren't you- you can't expect them to be. When you misread someone's identity, you expect from him what he can't provide. You can't make a stone catch fire; neither can you make someone be something he isn't. ![](HowIFoundFreedomp22.jpg) --- 3. You have to treat things and people in accordance with their own identities in order to get what you want from them. You don't expect a stone to be a fish. And it's just as unrealistic to expect one person to act as someone else does. You don't control the identities of people, but you can control how you deal with them. 4. You view the world subjectively—colored by your own experience, interpretation, and limits of perception. **It isn't essential that you know the final truth about everything in the world; and you don't have the resources to discover it**. **Instead, the test to be applied to any idea is: does it work?** Does your identification of things lead to the consequences you expect? If it does, what you've perceived was true enough for that situation. But recognize the context of the situation and be skeptical when generalizing from that test to draw broader conclusions. These observations can help to keep you out of the Identity Trap. You don't have to try to live a life that isn't yours. What others say you should be is based either upon what they are or upon the way they feel you'd be of more value to them. Neither can be a valid basis for determining how you should live your life. They're doing and saying what makes them happy, and their conclusions are drawn from their own limited, subjective experience. You are what you are. And it will be up to you to discover what that is. I'll help you in every way I can in this book, but the decisions will be up to you. The Identity Traps are the belief that you should live in a way determined by others and the assumption that others will react to things as you would. These two traps are the most basic of all traps. They might seem terribly obvious to you. If so, good --- p46: All the answers must come from you—not from a book or a lecture or a sermon. To assume that someone once wrote down the final answers for your morality is to assume that the writer stopped growing the day he wrote the code. Don't treat him unfairly by thinking that he couldn't have discovered more and increased his own understanding after he'd written the code. And don't forget that what he wrote was based upon what he saw. No matter how you approach the matter, you are the sovereign authority who makes the final decisions. The more you realize that, the more your decisions will fit realistically with your own life. Personal morality is an attempt to consider all the relevant consequences of your acts. If you think out your morality for yourself, it should open up a better life that will be free from the bad consequences that complicate matters. And it should lead you more directly to those things that bring you happiness. Along the way, you should be able to act more freely; for once you've looked ahead to recognize potentially troublesome situations, you're free to act more impulsively in pleasant circumstances—knowing there's no danger that bad problems will ensue. **When you decide to take matters into your own hands, someone may ask you, "Who do you think you are? Who are you to decide for yourself in the face of society and centuries of moral teachings?"** **The answer is simple: You are you, the person who will five with the consequences of what you do. No one else can be re sponsible, because no one else will experience the consequences of your actions as you will.** **If you're wrong, you will suffer for it. If you're right, you will find happiness. You have to be the one to decide. "Who are you to know?" It's your future at stake. You have to know.** --- p63 To say "You can do it if you'll just believe you can" is to try to wish away reality. In those situations that involve direct alternatives, your own mental attitude can make quite a difference. But in situations involving indirect alternatives, false confidence can induce you to waste your time futilely trying to change others. It's easy to get involved in a group with the assumption that you'll work hard to persuade others of the Tightness of your ideas. But those others are individual human beings—each with his own knowledge, attitude, goals, and plans. Your mental attitude will have no more effect in changing his nature than his mental attitude could change yours. A realistic man recognizes the identity of each person he deals with. He knows that he can't change the identity of the other person just by willing it. He takes the identities of others seriously and then decides what direct alternatives exist for him in view of those identities. That doesn't mean that no one ever changes his ideas or plans. But the changes occur only when they make sense to the individual—when they are harmonious with his basic nature. **There are occasions when you must sell something to someone else--possibly even sell for a living. But an efficient salesman doesn't approach the world with the idea that his persuasive powers could change anyone.** **Rather, he accepts people as they are and relies upon two talents: (1) his ability to locate people whose self-interests would be satisfied by his product or service; and (2) his ability to demonstrate to those people the connection between his product and their self-interest.** **I realize that most salesmen waste their time trying futilely to persuade anyone and everyone they meet. But that's why most salesmen make poor livings for the amount of time they spend at it.** The most successful salesmen, consciously or intuitively recognize and accept the identities of the people they deal with! They take seriously their prospects' attitudes and objections. And they don't waste their time with inappropriate prospects. Because they realize that they can't sell everyone, they're more selective in picking the people they'll try to sell. ![](freedominanunfreep67.jpg) --- p67 From a libertarian point of view you rarely see a victim. To borrow Harry Browne's words: >If you think that someone or some group of people is unjustly poor, your opinion implies that someone else should be giving them more money—through jobs or charity. That "someone else" is the person whose happinessseeking methods disturb you. In the same way, if you feel that certain people are being repressed politically, it implies that someone has the power to keep them from doing what they want to do. In other words you get to the source of the problem much faster and without necessarily focusing on the victims at all because they are not the concern, the concern is solving their problem , in this case eliminating the individual whose happiness seeking is causing them to be "victims" Extrapolating you also could save that the key to solving most problems is fine ding out how people seek happiness and helping them optimize how they do that, which is just a stones throw from Buddhism. But what if an individuals method of maximizing happiness is to minimize the happiness of others? ![](freedominanunfreep67.jpg)