Kierkegaard’s Approximaitons to Personal Freedom.

In reading Soren Kierkegaard’s approximations to personal freedom helped me to look at my own freedom in a new way.  The aesthetic stage is where people focus on experience and seek out many different form of pleasure and excitement, but do not recognize their ability to choose.  I spent sometime in this stage where I was looking for fulfillment in my successes at a young age. It seemed as though the praises I received from parents and others was enough to satisfy my needs.

The ethical stage is where people accept responsibility of choices but use other outside sources as guides.  In this stage I seemed to adopt the beliefs of my role-models such as parents and youth ministers.  My choices always seemed to reflect what I thought would be okay in their eyes.  Kierkegaard considered this better that the aesthetic stage, but I was still not acting on full personal freedom.  I think that I am currently in transition from this stage to the next.  Throughout the past few years I have been transitioning to a more introspection orientated way of decision making.

The final level is the religious stage. Here is where people recognize and accept their freedom through a personal relationship with God.  People existing on this level make decisions based on the nature of God and by one’s self-awareness.  This idea of freedom through self-awareness and responsibility is still a major theme that continues to anchor existentialism today.