You Hold the Key to Your Own Freedom I used to think that Freedom was what someone gave to me. Until I found that I was bound by nameless heavy chains I could not see. I used to think that Freedom was what someone gave to me. Until I learned that what I’d earned was simply my permission To use that very freedom that no one but myself could give to me. Those locks and bonds and prisons are the things we’ve learned to hate Yet these most despised constructions are identically the ones We have masterfully come to create. I’ve spent my lifetime waiting for someone to set me free. I could not grow I didn’t know that in my very hands I held the key!

– Shirley Kashoff