Freedom form memories

Past memories play a significant role in our decision-making process. For example, when taking the decision as to which career, we choose, one of the most crucial considerations is our past experiences. Our memories of flamboyant friends flaunting their money or our own struggle with basic needs during childhood may influence our decision to choose the careers that offer us a good amount of money. Disturbances in family life, leading to a lack of loving relations, may drive our decisions to have a career with a work-life balance. Instances of exploitation by the powerful or offering of respect by society to a few selective persons based on their status may motivate us to acquire positions of power and accordingly may influence our career choices. Meeting a knowledgeable person may turn our interest towards a knowledge-centric career. There are many more memories that drive our decision to choose a particular career. Similarly, each of our decision is influenced by our experiences.

A question arises if our decisions are driven by past experiences, do we not have any free will while making these decisions? Are all our decisions taken in auto mode, depending upon our past memories? I feel that we have completely free will, despite our decisions being influenced by our past memories and experiences. 

Generally, we operate with a strong sense of identification with the body and the mind. This is our primary center of existence and it's survival is the primary purpose of life. Whatever helps us to protect the body and mind becomes the goal of life. Experiences linked to the survival of the body and mind are shifted to long-term memory and the rest of the experiences remain in short-term memory. Each time we see or hear something, a choice is made by ourselves as to whether the experience is to be stored in short-term or long-term memory. 

Survival of the body and mind is not about only physical security rather it is far more about psychological security. We fall ill and want to get well soon. The illness gets worse and we go to the hospital. We need money for that. We do not get admission to the hospital and we need reference and connection to get admission. We see there are some powerful VIPs getting special attention and care. We also get tempted to gain power in society. Thus, money, connections, and power, all get linked to psychological security.  

We keep making different long-term memories based on our own experiences and the experiences of those we interact with. Generally, each new experience is evaluated by the "self", which is itself a bundle of past memories. The experiences this "self" considers closely related to its survival are shifted to long-term memory and become part of the "self". This process keeps taking place automatically till we die. I am yet to find an old person who is free of these insecurities. In fact, generally, these insecurities increase with age because one sees death nearer than earlier. 

I feel that there is only one way, this never-ending process may be ended. It is with awareness. Awareness is a choice that we can make in each moment or none of the moments. This may be best compared with the process of accumulation of fat and regaining fitness. When we eat without awareness, we keep eating the food as per our childhood habits without being aware of the need of the body for nutrition. The taste buds want more and more junk food and we start accumulating the fat. This process keeps going on. However, the moment we decide to be aware, we become conscious of the nutritional value of the food and start making choices for healthy food. As we choose to be aware, we start understanding the following:

1. Individual differences: The first thing we realize is that we all are quite unique and different from each other in many aspects. The moment we realize our uniqueness, we understand that "one size fits all" solutions offered by society are not workable. We understand that we can not blindly follow the norms of society just for the sake of social validation. This brings a lot of liberty and freedom. 
2. Social confirmation bias: As we realize our uniqueness and differences, we get over the confirmation biases. We give a lot of premium to many things and consider them to be important just because society says so. For me, getting into civil services might have been a dream coming true. This gets confirmed each time I meet any member of the society. The respect they give just by virtue of being a civil servant is immense. The moment I choose to be aware, I see the individual differences. I see very clearly that its value in my life is quite different from the social perception. With this awareness, I become free from the Social confirmation bias.  
3. Faulty correlations: With awareness, we understand faulty correlations between different things that we have stored in our memory. Childhood experiences of physical violence may draw strong correlations between certain positions and the power we have. However, these correlations may be grossly faulty and might have changed over a period of time or would have existed only in our perception. I have seen this very clearly while working. Power exists only for the ones who want to misuse it. For the ones following the rules and regulations, it's all their responsibility. The greater the position of authority, the more responsible a person feels and the more cautious he becomes. If we stay aware, we will not form these faulty correlations that otherwise drive our lives.
4. Missing pieces of the story: Generally, in our experiences, there are a lot of missing pieces. When we live life without awareness, we either ignore these missing pieces or speculate about them based on our convenience or past experiences and make a mental story. We start living with a mental story and over a period of time, this story starts appearing to us as more real than even reality. we go to the extent of overlooking the reality of this story. For example, we all make a story of the utility of money in our minds. We see many people throwing lavish parties, going for expensive tours, and buying expensive vehicles. We see page 3 news each day in the newspaper. If we are not aware, we presume that all of them are drawing great happiness from these parties, tours, and vehicles, as a missing piece of the story. We also add the presumption that everybody becomes happy. With awareness, we become aware of the significance of the missing piece and realize that not everybody has pleasure from such things. It all depends upon the level of consciousness of the individual. We have an example of Buddha leaving all these naturally available to him in the search for truth. So we can not add the missing piece without looking at the individual differences of our own nature. 
5. Meaning of life: As we grow awareness, we make more efforts to understand the true meaning of life. We understand that all our actions so far have been aimed at physical or psychological security and can not be the only aim of life. We can not possess a laptop just to keep it intact. There has to be some use of the same. We can use it to explore the world by connecting to the entire world virtually. Similarly, the purpose of this life can not be restricted to just ensuring survival. Of course, survival is important. We keep the laptop safe but safety is not the purpose of buying a laptop. Similarly, the purpose of this body and mind is to explore new possibilities. 
6. Balance: As we choose awareness, we start drawing a balance between survival needs and exploration. As we work on social confirmation biases, we start getting rid of the burden we carry in our minds. We become aware of the faulty correlations and set our mental framework right. We also understand the missing part of the stories in our experiences. This all gives us a lot of freedom from the burden of our psychological insecurities. We also understand that the aim of this life is not as mundane as survival. With this awareness, our balance of life starts shifting. Survival and fear-driven activities start giving way to exploration. We visit new places to explore. We meet new people to understand their lives. We explore assignments that are intellectually stimulating and offer new opportunities for learning. 
7. Calculated risk: With awareness, there takes place a significant shift in our understanding of risk. We understand that risk is not absolute. It's relative. We avoid many risks because we do not see the value of those actions. The moment we become aware of exploration being the aim of life, we start taking calculated risks. We definitely want to protect the body and the mind. But at the same time. We recalibrate the risk, the moment we see the value of exploration in our life and take bolder decisions. 
8. Faith: Awareness gives us faith. As we observe, we realize the limited role this "I" plays in our lives. Almost all the internal processes of the body keep running without this "I" having an iota of awareness. The entire digestive process, breathing process, circulation of the blood, the nutrients reaching the right place in the body, their conversion into energy at the cellular level, the immune system fighting the bacteria and the virus all the time, the entire functioning of the biome within us. This body itself is like a miracle. The entire universe, the rotation and revolution of the earth, it's a coordinated weather system, the solar system, and many such solar systems in our galaxy. It all looks so amazing and beyond the capacity of this "I" to understand. With this grows faith in nature. It will be taken care of, as it has been for millions of years and this "I" has not much role in that. 
9. Life after death: As we practice awareness, we also see that all divisions including the division between life and death are mental imaginations. Rather than being afraid of death or dismissing it outrightly, we look into it closely. We try to understand this puzzle. With continuous awareness, we slowly get a deep understanding of the real meaning of death. What dies and what continues. We slowly understand that the dilapidated home has to fall for the new home to be built to provide a better home to the dweller.

I would say, from my experiences, that this choice of being aware is available to us all the time similar to the choice of eating healthy. Generally, out of our laziness or fears, we do not exercise this choice quite often and keep wasting life driven by the auto-pilot of past memories. Awareness brings freedom and the choice to be aware is always there. The first step in this direction is the last step because the moment we take the first step, all the forces of the universe start supporting us and there is no going back. The process itself gives us immense joy. I have seen this in my life. After I took the first step, the moment I got any doubt, either I got the right book to address that doubt or I got the right person to address that. Life is the biggest teacher and if we are determined to be aware, life provides us all the answers. There is no need to run after any guru, if one can be like a honey bee taking honey from all the flowers in the garden. Life becomes richer and more meaningful with each moment of awareness. We realize that when we look back and see our life, we see how rich it has become.