Today marks the 22nd year of Freedom Day in South Africa. We will never forget the sacrifices and the high price that people paid for South Africa to be a constitutional democratic country.

This freedom was certainly not free. Change came from people who took responsibility.

Ideas don’t get implemented by people who don’t take responsibility.

With freedom comes responsibility.

Freedom is the ability to set your schedule, to decide on the work you do, to make your own decisions and implement your free will.

Responsibility is being held accountable for your actions. It might involve figuring out how to get paid for your work, owning your mistakes or having others count on you.

Freedom without responsibility is certainly tempting. Responsibility without freedom is stressful. The temptation is always to want freedom without responsibility.

The first challenge of freedom: is not just the freedom to plan your day and your projects, but the freedom to try new things, to go out all the way out to the edge, to launch things that might not work.

It is easier to use freedom to go shopping, sit in any restaurant. And easier still to buy what everyone is buying.

We need to cultivate the freedom to make things, to create, to fail, to adjust, to learn, re-learn, to do work that matters, and to produce things that other nations will consume.

We need to use our freedom to transition from being a nation of consumers to a nation of producers.

We have more choices, more options and more resources than any generation, ever.

Necessity is the mother of invention, when the need for something becomes essential, you are forced to find ways of getting or achieving it.

We have won the freedom to do what we want to do, we need to win the responsibility (from our inner souls) to initiate things, do work that matters, to produce more than we consume.

Freedom and responsibility are not given, they are taken.

Happy Freedom (and Responsibility) Day South Africa.