If you see a large sailboat out on the water moving swiftly, it is because the sailor is honoring the boat's design. If she tries to take it into water too shallow for it, the boat will be ruined. The sailor experiences the freedom of speed sailing only when she limits her boat to the proper depth of water and faces the wind at the proper angle.

In the same way, human beings thrive in certain environments and break down in others. Unless you honor the given limits of your physical nature, you will never know the freedom of health. Unless you honor the given limits of human relationships, you will never know the freedom of love and social peace. If you actually lived any way you wanted—never aligning your choices with these physical and social realities—you would quickly die, and die alone.

You are, then, not free to do whatever you choose … You get the best freedoms only if you are willing to submit your choices to various realities, if you honor your own design.