The link between freedom and happiness

Can you see a link between freedom and happiness? Because I partly can. With freedom you can do or say what you want and that must be a good feeling. But doesn't your freedom make someone else unhappy? And isn't having too much choices something that can actually stress you out?

Your freedom can make someone else unhappy. Let's take Dutch politician Geert Wilders. He is the founder of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid) and he is using his freedom of speech to the maximum. He thinks that in the Netherlands there should be less Islam and Moroccans. His statements has created a lot of hate under the Moroccans and other Muslims in the Netherlands. His freedom of speech has hurt and caused irritation to others. But now let's look at this problem from the view of Geert Wilders. Moroccans have the highest crime rate in the Netherlands. This is one of the reasons why Geert Wilders thinks why Islam is anything but a peaceful religion. The freedom of religion of the Moroccans has caused irritation to Geert Wilders and his supporters.

This is just an example. Geert Wilders doesn't want to kill every Muslim on earth and most Moroccans have never committed a crime. In this example you see that the freedom of others have made others angry and/or unhappy.

Having too many options to choose from can make you unhappy too. Having more option causes more hesitation. What is the best thing to choose? Having more options will lead to a bigger chance of regretting the choice you made. You went for option A, but what if you took option B? Or even option C? Option D didn't look bad either.

Freedom is a weird thing. With full freedom we would be in a chaos, but with no freedom we would have a dictatorship. Look at North Korea for example. Freedom and happiness were the last words you thought of when I mentioned North Korea. Now think of a country without the police, national security, politicians or the army. Would there be happiness in a country like that? Wouldn't that be total disaster. We need a group of people limiting our freedom to keep peace. We need balance in life. The key to life is balance. Limited freedom is life. Life is happiness.