Freedom or Potential

Many people tend to think of freedom as life with out responsibilities. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we have no responsibilities, no decisions to make, then we are living in the absence of freedom. If I am alone in a forest, technically I am free, but it doesn't matter. For young people starting out, the relative lack of responsibilities means they have potential; but if I have potential, well I really don't have anything.
Freedom works when we make decisions. Whenever I make a decision, I voluntarily self-limit, because every decision makes vast chunks of possibilities quite improbable. If I build a house, for instance, I have to lay a foundation. Once I lay the foundation, any new decisions will be limited by the decisions I made with the foundation. Creation is self-limiting. Writers learn this lesson as well; we start out with infinite possibility, but what we end up with is this. Sure, I could just change the topic and start writing about polka, but that's not really very satisfying is it?
This is true with relationships as well. Many see the responsibilities of marriage and balk, thinking that their freedom will be limited. Relationships are a matter of free decision that we enter into; by default, assuming the absence of coercion, marriage is an exercise of freedom. So are children, mortgages, the car you buy, the church you go to, the schools, the Walmart runs, the company you keep, etc...
You can only use freedom when you choose to do something. But, as we all know decisions have consequences. We may feel really stressed out because of those consequences, but despite that we are much more free when we create and relate than when we do not.
The greater danger is in not making decisions. Then we will fade and die, managing very little in this life, being led here and there by a few strong willed people. I think this could be worse, for the soul, than opression. I'd hate to have a gravestone that said, "... He had great potential."