Thank you for the question! Personally I'm more of a determinist in that sense :) When I was younger, I thought otherwise. But now I see very clearly that there was in fact no choice for me, not at all.

It's almost like you can couse-correct your path but whatever you pick is an influence of something - eitheir nature or nurture. It has to come from somewhere.

As for the choices and conflict... that's very interesting actually.

If one were to pursue a big shiny goal that requires discipline and saying "no" to certain things or even people. Would one take it as a constraint or as a freedom? Meaning "freedom" as "focus" or "attention".

I think it's a matter of perception. Having choices provokes conflict when you struggle to accept the reality - which is you can only enter one door at a time.

Once you've committed to a certain choice and accepted the reality, there's no conflict anymore. And that's when you're "free" in a way - free from distractions and misery.

I don't know, what do you think?