An Upright and Free Life

Today again I am thinking of living an upright and free life, fearing the blame of no one who blames.

Beyond the strength to tell right from wrong, do you have a life in which you can stand straight as long as you believe you are doing right? It is not only a matter of courage. One must also choose the right life.

That is why I asked it that way. Do you have a life in which you can stand upright whatever happens? Or are there people in your life who could pull you down by the ankles?

If your life hangs between somebody's two lips I cannot be angry with you. All my life I have been harmed by envious words and base decisions that came from two unthinking lips. But I never let them into the centre of my life.

At the point I have reached I say this: everything I did wrong, I did. All of it was my own error. And I understand that this has been my greatest rightness.

Just as I never left my fate to the wind, I never let anyone else's private will place a regret in my life.

Each person's will is their own. Be yourselves, and do everything by your own will. If there is anything happier than doing everything right, it is living a life in which both the right and the wrong came out of your own will.

Everyone lives their own fate, everyone lives by their own choices, but hear what I am saying. I am not saying choice, I am saying will. The things you choose do not make the error yours if the outcome turns out wrong.

Did this choice come from your will, or from your obligations? That is the question.

Will is what is needed. A strong will is needed for a life in which you can own both the right and the wrong.

So my Friday advice is this: with every decision you make, sit and ask how much of it is your own will. Am I merely weighing what has been offered to me, and is that freedom?

As Suleiman the Magnificent is said to have put it: my will is that two hundred thousand gold coins be distributed to my janissaries.