Playing With Freedom—Unfiltered Discoveries of a 20-Year-Old

What the F*ck Do I Do Now?

I asked myself that question again. Not for the first time. Not for the tenth. More times than I could count. And it wasn’t about anything dramatic or life-changing—it wasn’t about work or relationships or some make-or-break decision. It was just about what the hell to do after getting home on a random Tuesday night, standing in the middle of my apartment with no plans, no structure, and nothing stopping me from doing whatever I wanted.

The clock blinked at me like it had something to say. I blinked back.

Do I get back to work?

Do I doomscroll myself to sleep?

Do I go outside?

The silence in my apartment felt heavier than it should have, and for some reason, it pissed me off.

Here I was, finally on my own, with no one to set rules, no one to judge me, no one keeping track of whether I was making good decisions or completely letting myself go. If I wanted, I could stay up all night watching nonsense, order takeout every day, sleep through my alarms, slack off at work, let my responsibilities pile up, and sink into a slow-motion version of self-destruction that no one would ever notice.

And the messed-up part? That should have felt like freedom.

Freedom—the holy grail of adulthood. The moment I’d been waiting for. The ability to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, without answering to anyone.

But after a few months of tasting this bittersweet thing, I started to realize that it wasn’t what I thought it was. Not even close.

Part 1 – The Privilege of Being Small

I used to think freedom came in big, cinematic moments—moving to a new city, quitting a job, walking away from something that had been holding me back. I thought independence would feel like standing at the edge of something vast and exciting, like stepping into a new life, like a clean slate. But what if that’s not how it really works?

During my apprenticeship, I had a weird kind of freedom, one I didn’t recognize at first. I was nobody—just an intern, a temporary fixture in a company full of people who actually mattered. My paycheck was just pocket money, my presence barely registered, and I wasn’t really part of the culture.

I wasn’t important enough to fail in any spectacular way, but I also wasn’t expected to succeed.

And at first, that felt like a bad thing, like I was floating in some empty space where nothing I did really mattered.

But then I started to realize—I had no pressure, no high stakes, no real consequences. Just space. And space, it turns out, is one of the rarest things in the world. I could experiment, I could take risks, I could mess up multiple times, and no one would care. I had the room to figure things out. That, I thought, was freedom.

But then I started noticing something else:

When no one is watching, when no one is keeping you in check, when you have total control over what you do and how you do it, you don’t always make the right choices. You start slipping, and sometimes, you don’t even realize you’re slipping—until you’re already in freefall.

Part 2 – It’s Easy to Skid on a Wet Road

I always thought freedom meant movement—stepping onto an open road, full speed ahead, wind in my face, nothing in my way.

But even the best riders skid when the road is wet, right? So I skidded. A lot.

I found myself slipping back into old routines–I wasted time, I wasted energy, I said yes to things I didn’t care about and no to things I should have held onto. I made choices I regretted, not because they were huge mistakes, but because they were slow, easy, comfortable ones—the kind that pull you off course so gradually you don’t even notice you’re lost–all in such a short timeframe.

It felt like I had all this freedom, and instead of using it, I just let it slip through my fingers.

And that’s the thing about freedom—when no one is telling you what to do, when there are no rules left to follow, when you have all the space in the world to make something of yourself, you don’t suddenly transform into the person you always wanted to be. You fall back on who you’ve always been. Old habits, old distractions, old versions of yourself that you thought you’d outgrown.

At first, I thought I was failing at being independent. But then I realized—this wasn’t about independence at all. It wasn’t about freedom, or responsibility, or whether or not I was “adulting” correctly. It was about foundation. My foundation as a person.

Because:

Freedom doesn’t transform you. It just reveals you.

Part 3 – The Mirror

I used to think that once I had freedom, I’d become someone new. That once I had the space, I’d finally grow into the person I was supposed to be. But when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see someone new. I saw the same person I had always been. The same habits, the same thought patterns, the same instincts that had guided me before—except now, they were the only things guiding me.

Because when everything else is stripped away, when no one is setting the rules, when there’s nothing keeping you in check, you don’t rise to the occasion. You fall to your foundation.

And if your foundation is weak? You don’t just skid. You crash.

I always thought freedom was about choice—waking up every day and deciding who to be. But that’s only half of it. The other half is what’s already inside you. Because life will give you more freedom than you know what to do with in small spaces like these. And when it does, you won’t have time to build a new version of yourself from scratch. You’ll just fall back on what’s already there.

And maybe that’s the real question. Not “What do I do with my freedom?” but “Who am I when no one is watching?”

So What Now?

I don’t have all the answers, but I know this: the time to fix your foundation isn’t when you’re skidding. It’s not when you’re crashing. It’s before the road gets wet. Because one day, the rules will be gone. The structure will disappear. And it’ll just be you.

And when you ask yourself, “What the f*ck do I do now?” you’ll either have an answer.

Or you won’t.

– Shardul Gupta