None of Us Are Free Until the Most Vulnerable Are Free
Lately, it feels hard to miss how much pain there is around us. It doesn’t take much to look around and sense that something is deeply wrong. You don’t even need the news - just a walk outside or a scroll on your phone. People are hurting.
And yet, every morning, I wake up in a home where my family is safe, my needs are met, and my life is predictable. I’m grateful for that. But I’m also aware that my experience is largely not the norm.
There’s a version of freedom our culture celebrates: personal success, individual choice, comfort, security. We’re taught that real freedom is measured by how independent we can become, how little we need anyone, and how well we can protect what is “ours.”
For most of my life, I didn’t question that. And I know many of us don’t - not because we’re careless or cruel, but because this has simply always been the air we breathe, the message we inherit from day one, especially in this country.
Its in moments like this, where I’m aware of and grateful for the people in my life who love me enough not to let me stay in a bubble of my own comfort but offer up conversations that interrupt my limited worldview and assumptions, again and again.
I think about the taxi driver who told me his only goal was to feed his family and send his daughter to college.
I think about a mom friend who lost her son to gun violence and now tries, every day, to turn her pain into purpose by honoring his legacy and those of others who share the same story as her.
I think about the teenager who needed a few dollars for bus fare so they could chase the dream of being the first in their family to graduate high school.
They have become some of my greatest teachers. Their lives have taught me about love, resilience, courage and to stay curious and never assume I understand someone’s story from the outside.
The more I stay curious (truly curious) the more I find myself asking: What kind of freedom do I have if it only exists for people with access, opportunity, and protection, while others live in constant vulnerability?
There are real reasons why some communities carry so much more suffering than others. It’s complicated, and far too layered to unpack here, but it matters to name it. We’re all vulnerable as humans but that vulnerability hasn’t been shared evenly. History, policy, and power have shaped who carries more of the weight. And whether we mean to or not, many of us benefit from systems that rely on someone else carrying more of that weight.
Think about who those systems lean on:
Children growing up inside structures never designed with their safety in mind
Mothers carrying unimaginable grief with almost no support.
Elders choosing between medication and food.
People navigating illness, addiction, displacement, poverty, or violence with little help
Communities carrying decades (sometimes generations) of injustice while others remain largely untouched.
So when the most vulnerable among us are still unsafe, unseen, and unsupported, the “freedom” the rest of us enjoy is not freedom at all. It’s more like a comfort bubble, one that protects us in some ways, yes, but also keeps us disconnected in ways that cost us more than we realize.
I’m grateful for the people and communities in my life who keep teaching me to widen my view. Their stories and courage have expanded my understanding of what it actually means to belong to one another.
Because if my peace depends on someone else’s suffering, it isn’t peace. And if my security depends on someone else’s vulnerability, it isn’t security.
The real question isn’t, “Am I free?” It’s, “Who isn’t, and what does that mean for all of us?”
Who is waiting for justice others never have to think twice about?
And what would it look like to live as if their freedom truly matters to mine?
I don’t have this figured out. I’m still learning how to really listen, how to show up without trying to be the hero, and how not to let a world obsessed with safety and self-sufficiency harden my heart.
But I do know this: true freedom doesn’t work if it only works for some of us.
And maybe it’s only when the most vulnerable among us can finally live with dignity, safety, and possibility that any of us will be able to say with honesty - that we are truly free.
