A little bit about myself…

My name is Olga and I live in a wonderful country, Belarus.It is full of picturesque places which
constantly inspire me. Looking at clear rivers that reflect the azure sky, I cannot help writing about these
beautiful places,giving expression to feelings that comes upon me in my own way, on paper. But
inspiration is not limitless, therefore, in order to bring another work to life, I have to look for something
that will cause a storm of emotions inside of me, a spark, a push.I discover new nooks and they help me
in this. Once I went for a walk and came across a huge endless field where there was my first
experience of this wonderful feeling,called freedom: independence from all affairs and pleasant
lightness.And I involuntarily began to ponder whether freedom can be as strong a feeling,as infinite as
this field itself. Therefore, without thinking, I decided to take part in this contest, first of all to speak out
and for the first time to let someone give a grade to my work.
endless freedom

Freedom is something that was elegized on in songs, exalted in poetry and prose, comparing it with the
beauty by which the world goes crazy (George Seville Halifax) and calling this concept the only
characteristic feature of civilization (Lev Mechnikov). This is something that can not be bought or sold.
In pursuit of it, people commit rash actions: they abandon their families, move to another city, go to the
ends of the earth just to feel its beauty.

Each person has his own idea of what it means to be free. It depends on intellection and, accordingly,
age, on the situation around. Whatever period in the history of mankind we look, there are wars in each
of them, not necessarily accompanied by bloodshed and many thousands of army, there may be a
struggle of only one or several people defending their rights or point of view. Recall, for example, the
russification policy, the mass repressions of Belarusian writers in the 1930s, So despite moral pressure,
some of them, having exceptional courage ,continued their work in their native language, allowing the
Belarusian word to live and finding their freedom in self-expression.

The understanding of this word also depends on the values of a person and his education, which
differs depending on the place where he lives and on the period on the time line in which he fell to be
born.In the past, a rural man worked from sunrise to late evening.Exhausted from fatigue, he raised his
scythe and made another wave for the family of this person to forget for a while what a hunger was.At
the same time, a modern, carefree, as it would seem, schoolboy feels cornered by the onslaught of
homework and with a great effort of will after a parental conversation he fulfills his duties.

Obviously, by the word freedom, we don't mean unlimited power for the implementation of human
whims, and not self-will, but a feeling of lightness, calmness and complete pacification for which
humanity is unsuccessfully seeking, but which is attained less and less often. In all my born days I have
come across a great number of talented people. Some could become excellent engineers or succeed in
painting, others had the ability to do business or to communicate with children.It was sufficient for them
just to make a few efforts: to bring a certain quality and get rid of the negative ones. However,
frightened by failures, competition, and having been drawn into pandering to laziness, they chose a
different path, an easier one.These people deprived themselves of their favorite work, did not reveal
their potential, and actually abandoned a happy future.

Several random people turned my life upside down: I felt hatred for human vices for the fact that
they did not allow a person to go beyond the limits that he had set in his head, and having made
freedom from shortcomings as his goal, he decided It has changed.I discovered that once too often a
person resigns himself to weaknesses, justifying his actions by wish to have fun, take a break from
others and run away from a cruel reality. For example, gamers do likewise, plunging into a comfortable
environment where a person is not responsible for actions and is not criticized by others . Meanwhile,
virtual reality takes most of the time of such a person, turns into addiction, but solutions to real
problems remain undecided. The German thinker Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche wrote: it is impossible to
become free from what you are running away. This is perhaps one of those mistakes that I made on the
way to my goal. I looked for relief in many activities: reading, knitting, even in computer graphics, but I
always forgot that it was infeasible to hide from problems, just like a small child, having closed his eyes,
hides from monsters .

I accepted the fact that a person does not choose where and in which family he will be born, how he
will be called or what to meet on the path of life: severity and obstacles that arise like turbulent rivers
with a rocky bottom or quiet carefree years. The ship does not sink when it is in the water. It sinks when
the water is in it.

It is not the situation itself that is of importance, but the attitude towards it, then, having calmed down
and reasoning soberly, a person not only can get rid of internal anxiety, but also be able to more
accurately examine the state of affairs, it is possible to detect benefits both for oneself and others that
will allow to reach the point of calmness.

When I was a small child, I oftentimes thought about why I had to live far from the city, in the back of
beyond, when I wanted to spend time with friends, walk in the night park, be carried away by the flow
of events. My mother made me believe that it is really luck to be born here, away from the bustle of the
city and described to me so many opportunities that open to villagers.

"...We watched autumn foliage falling, could sit for hours and look at the bright flame in the furnace,
then having looked into the windows and seen a raging storm outside, more wrapped up in a blanket.
We sort of felt nature and could see in it what was not given to penetrate to the modern fussy man".

It seems to me that the newborn baby has unlimited freedom: he does not feel the problems of the
world around him, but sincerely rejoices at her mother’s touch, her smile, and knowing the world, faces
everyday for each of us things and phenomena: blue sky, bright sunshine and colorful rainbow, stunning
little man to the depths of the soul, and being real miracles. Life itself, given to us, is already freedom:
we can feel the touches of the loved people, experience emotions, hear pleasant smell of flowers...But
endless freedom comes when a person swallows his pride and selfishness, overcomes anger and
resentment, becomes like a child: knows how to forgive , sees joy in trifles and completely trusts his
nearest and dearest, not looking for a dirty trick.

Freedom is something that was elegized on in songs, exalted in poetry and prose, comparing it with
the beauty by which the world goes crazy (George Seville Halifax) and calling this concept the only
characteristic feature of civilization (Lev Mechnikov).In pursuit of it, people commit rash actions: they
abandon their families, move to another city, go to the ends of the earth just to feel its whole charm.
This is something that cannot be bought or sold, but can be comprehended by changing yourself.