“Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

Sometimes freedom is not about escaping the path we were given but becoming aware of the forces that shaped it.

I was ten when I was told by my mother that I would be a minister of the gospel

I remember the day like yesterday

The children’s church had an annual children’s anniversary coming up, and the teachers were tasked with picking a “One-Day Pastor” who would preach on that day

We had the audition, and I won the audition hands down

The Sermon on the Mount was my first ever sermon. I stood before the church, and I preached for forty minutes

Then I did the unthinkable

Instead of closing with prayer as I was coached, I did an altar call, and nine people came forward to give their lives to Jesus

The church pastor and all the leaders were shocked to the bone

I got a lot of gifts, slaps on the back, well done, and positive energy from everybody in church that day

Parents wish their children were in my shoes

I was so good.

When I got home that day, I told my mother it was a form of rehearsal for me towards my goal in life.

I told her I wanted to become a lawyer

She looked at me quietly and said, “That’s not a real option for us. Years ago, I made a vow to God that if he gave me a son, I would give him back to Him. That’s why I named you Samuel. You will be a minister of the Gospel.

Just like that.

I ignored her and said to myself. It is my life; it is my choice what I want to do with it, and I am never going to be a preacher.”

I think it was that day that I started developing this stubborn resistance against being told what to do.

It just didn’t sit well with me that I would be denied the right to choose my own path in life.

I did everything I had to to study law; I didn’t make the cut-off mark, and I tried several times

Instead, I studied Mass Communication.

For years, I told myself it was my decision. I called it practical, responsible, and realistic. Eventually, I even convinced myself it was what I truly wanted.

My life was a jumbled mess for many years, with my mother constantly telling me that all my frustrations were borne of my disobedience.

Eventually, three years into studying Mass Communication and leading my department academically, I had a divine encounter with the Holy Spirit

September 17, 2007, was the date.

At least I can say that I heard from God for myself and not “my mummy said…”

Recently, sitting alone with a cup of tea and too much silence, I asked myself a question I had avoided for years:

Did I ever really have a choice?

Free will is the belief that we are the authors of our own actions.

You believe that when you choose a career, leave a relationship, move to another city, or even order coffee instead of tea, you consciously make that decision.

It’s one of the most comforting ideas humans have ever created.

But science has complicated that comfort.

In the 1980s, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet conducted an experiment that disturbed many philosophers and psychologists. Participants were asked to move their wrists whenever they felt like it while scientists monitored their brain activity.

The surprising discovery was this: the brain showed signs of preparing for movement before the person became consciously aware of deciding.

The brain acted first.

Conscious awareness arrived later.

“The conscious mind may be more narrator than author.”

That possibility changes everything.

Maybe consciousness is not creating decisions. Maybe it is simply explaining them after they happen.

And yet, every choice still feels deeply personal.

That is what makes the illusion so convincing.

When I look honestly at my own life, I can see how much of me was formed before I ever believed I was “choosing” anything.

I grew up in a family where obedience to the word of God mattered more than passion.

I started writing at twelve, finished my first novel at fifteen, told myself I would win the Nobel Laureate, and I would be a lawyer like Gani Fawehinmi

I was defiant and determined to chase success on my terms

As a child, I absorbed all of this silently.

Long before I became old enough to make decisions, my fears and ambitions had already been shaped by my environment.

My environment built me first.

Then it handed me the illusion of freedom.

And that leads to an uncomfortable question:

If my personality, fears, desires, and worldview were all influenced by forces outside my control, then who exactly is making my choices?

Is it really me?

Or is it years of conditioning wearing my face?

I don’t believe free will is completely fake.

But I also don’t think we are as free as we pretend to be.

What I’ve come to believe is this:

Freedom is not an open sky.

It’s a corridor.

You can move within it, but the walls were built long before you arrived.

Your Destiny. Your genetics. Childhood. Culture. Trauma. Family expectations. Economic realities. Personality.

All of these shape the space inside which your choices happen.

Some people are born into wider corridors.

Others spend their entire lives trapped inside narrow ones.

“You are free to move, but not free from the map that shaped you.”

Within that corridor, choice still exists.

You can reflect. Resist. Change direction. Become more aware.

But pretending the corridor doesn’t exist creates unnecessary guilt.

Because if we believe humans are completely free, then we also believe every failure is entirely personal.

And that simply isn’t true.

For years, I blamed myself for not fighting harder for law.

Maybe if I prayed or sowed a seed or bribed God or perhaps promised God I would give him my own Son instead of me.

But eventually I realised something important.

My decision was tied to destiny

Not just my destiny, but the plan of God in destiny also

Understanding that didn’t remove responsibility.

But it did create compassion.

And strangely, awareness itself began to feel like freedom.

The moment you recognise your conditioning, its grip weakens slightly.

You may not escape it completely.

But you stop being unconsciously controlled by it.

Now, instead of asking “What should I do?” I ask, “Lord, what would you have me do?”

That question feels more honest than the fantasy of total independence.

The Stoic philosophers believed human beings cannot control everything that happens to them.

But they believed we could control how we respond.

That may be the only real freedom we ever have.

Not absolute freedom.

Not limitless choice.

Just awareness.

Just the ability to pause and notice the invisible forces shaping us.

“Freedom begins the moment we notice the forces trying to decide for us.”

I think about my ten-year-old self often.

What if I didn’t go to church on the day of that audition or didn’t take it as seriously as I took it, or if my mother didn’t make that oath at all?

I no longer judge her for choosing to have a son whose path in life had been predetermined even before he was born

She was navigating the only corridor she knew.

But I’m older now.

And awareness has widened my world.

Not because I escaped my conditioning entirely, but because I can finally see it clearly.

And every time we notice one of our invisible walls, we gain a little more room to decide who we want to become.

I still don’t know whether free will is completely real.

Every decision feels like mine, but often the decisions were influenced by the Holy Spirit long before I made them

But I also know how deeply I’ve been shaped by forces I never chose.

Maybe the answer matters less than the question itself.

Because asking “Did I choose this?” has made me more thoughtful, more compassionate, and less quick to judge myself or others.

Maybe the most human form of freedom available to us is simply this:

To submit ourselves to God without a struggle and discover our preordained destiny in Christ on time

To pay attention.

To question ourselves honestly.

To stop resisting God, thinking we have the power to determine our own destiny, so that we can move freely in him, live freely in him and have our being in him

That may not be perfect freedom.

But perhaps it is enough.

-GSW-