Why Having Total Freedom Can Be Scary

We live in a time where anything feels possible—career pivots at 40, non-traditional relationships, designing your “personal brand,” even curating your spiritual beliefs like a playlist. On paper, it’s freedom.

In practice?

A lot of people feel anxious, stuck, or even a little lost.

We’ve all heard of “paralysis by analysis” or the “paradox of choice,” but I want to dig deeper: what if this isn’t just about decision overload?

What if the core problem is existential?

When you have no fixed path, every choice starts to feel like a reflection of who you are, or worse—who you should be.

This isn’t just a cognitive dilemma; it’s an ontological one. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve seen it show up in therapy rooms, classrooms, and even your own life: freedom as both opportunity and pressure. That’s the tension I want to unpack.

Existentialism and the Weight of Modern Freedom

Let’s start with the familiar ground: Sartre famously said we’re “condemned to be free,” and that still feels like one of the most hauntingly accurate things ever written about modern life. When there’s no God, no predetermined essence, and no ultimate script—we’re left holding the pen. And that sounds empowering… until you try to write the first sentence.

What Sartre was getting at, and what still resonates today, is that freedom is not just about options—it’s about responsibility for defining the self in a world that won’t do it for you.

The Self as a Project

In traditional societies, identity used to be more or less handed to you. You were the baker’s son, or the village teacher. Life came with pre-assigned roles. But now, the expectation is that we “become ourselves” from scratch. That means choosing a career, a belief system, a family structure, a location, even a personality to project online.

That sounds like a beautiful project—until you realize you can never be sure you’re doing it “right.”

Take career choice. Today, work is supposed to be more than just survival—it’s how we “self-actualize.” People don’t just want jobs; they want to find their calling. But when every choice feels like it says something essential about who you are, it’s no wonder we get anxious. Choosing accounting over art isn’t just a decision—it starts to feel like a verdict on your true self.

Kierkegaard’s Dizziness Is Our Everyday Reality

Kierkegaard described the “dizziness of freedom”—that sense of vertigo you get when you realize you could do literally anything. Now scale that up to a world with infinite scrolling, Tinder swiping, and DIY spirituality. You’re not just choosing between options—you’re swimming in a sea of possible selves. And here’s the kicker: no one can validate which one is the “right” one.

This hits hard in areas like romantic relationships. When there’s no longer a cultural script guiding you toward monogamy, marriage, or parenthood, each decision feels like an existential referendum. Swipe right on person A and you’re possibly choosing a version of yourself you’ll have to live with forever. No wonder people ghost each other—it’s easier to disappear than to confront that kind of weight.

Infinite Choice = Identity Crisis

Here’s what I think gets missed when we frame this stuff as simple “choice overload.” We’re not just overwhelmed by options—we’re overwhelmed by what those options mean. Every major decision carries the subliminal pressure to express something coherent, meaningful, and maybe even transcendent about who you are.

And yet, ironically, the more options we have, the less stable our sense of self becomes. There’s no grounding narrative. No shared vision of what a good life looks like. Just curated personas and endless “possibility.”

So the question becomes: are we really free, or are we just overburdened with the duty to author ourselves from scratch, without a map?

I think Sartre and Kierkegaard saw this coming, but modern life has added a new twist: the constant feedback loop of social media and productivity culture has turned existential freedom into a performance. You’re not just choosing—you’re expected to broadcast those choices as part of your identity.

That, to me, is the new frontier of existential dread. It’s not just that we have too many options—it’s that we’re being asked to turn those options into a coherent, meaningful narrative of who we are. And most of us aren’t sure how to do that, because the tools we’ve inherited—philosophy, religion, community—aren’t quite built for this mess.

Is It Just Decision Fatigue… Or Something Deeper?

Okay, so it’s tempting to think all this anxiety around choice is just “decision fatigue.” And yes, that plays a role—but I don’t think it goes far enough. What we’re really dealing with isn’t just cognitive overload—it’s something more existential. A kind of low-grade, ambient dread that hums underneath the surface of every major (and minor) life decision.

So let’s take a look at the usual suspects—and where they fall short.

What the Usual Explanations Miss

Cognitive Overload
- We’ve all seen the studies: give someone 24 types of jam to pick from and they’ll end up more dissatisfied (or not choose at all) compared to when they’re given six.
- Sure, this helps explain why we freeze up in the cereal aisle. But does it really explain why someone has a breakdown over whether or not to quit their job or have kids? I’d argue no. Those are identity-defining decisions, not just preference-selection moments.
Fear of Regret
- Behavioral economics tells us we avoid risk and regret like the plague. But again, regret assumes a knowable outcome—we think, If only I had done X, I’d be happier now. That model doesn’t quite fit when the choice involves two entirely different versions of your future self, neither of which can be predicted. It’s not about regret—it’s about ontological uncertainty. You don’t just fear being wrong; you fear being someone you’re not sure you want to become.
FOMO and Social Comparison
- Yes, Instagram makes everything worse. Seeing other people “living their truth” or “crushing their goals” adds pressure. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real issue is that we’re benchmarking our identities against other people’s curated projections. FOMO isn’t just fear of missing out—it’s fear of being the wrong self.

So What’s Really Going On?

I think what we’re seeing is something closer to what R.D. Laing called “ontological insecurity.”

It’s the feeling that your being—your very self—is precarious, undefined, unmoored. When you don’t have a clear sense of what you are, every decision feels like a desperate attempt to nail it down.

This isn’t just academic.

I’ve seen this in therapy sessions where clients break down over choices that “should” be exciting: applying to grad school, starting a relationship, changing careers. These aren’t just decisions—they’re perceived as existential declarations: Am I a person who does this? Does this reflect who I am?

What if I’m wrong about myself?

When choice is untethered from context, culture, or any kind of external guidepost, it becomes too much. You’re not just choosing a job—you’re choosing a self, and if that self turns out to be wrong, you worry there’s no way back. There’s no path; there’s only you, staring at the horizon with a map you had to draw yourself.

And we haven’t even touched on the marketization of identity, which adds another layer of pressure. Now your choices aren’t just personal—they’re content. They’re “life updates.” They’re subject to algorithmic feedback and social metrics. So not only are you authoring a self—you’re expected to package it.

This is what I think Sartre didn’t foresee: in our current culture, freedom isn’t just about making choices. It’s about performing those choices as part of your public identity. Freedom has become branding.

So no, it’s not just decision fatigue. It’s a deep, structural anxiety about how to be, who to be, and how to know if you’re doing it right. And the more choices we’re given, the less confident we feel.

Why Defining Yourself Feels So Heavy Now

If I had to put my finger on the exact emotional tone of modern existential anxiety, I’d call it “exhausted agency.” You’re told you can be anything—but you also have to figure it out on your own, justify it, and then sell it to everyone else. That’s a lot.

And here’s the kicker: this isn’t an abstract philosophical problem. It’s a daily-life problem. It’s in your inbox, your dating apps, your endless job-search rabbit holes.

So let’s talk about self-authorship—this beautiful but deeply overwhelming expectation that we’re supposed to invent who we are from scratch.

The Neoliberal Trap: Freedom as a Solo Project

The dominant narrative right now is that freedom is empowerment. And in theory, it is. But in practice, it’s often experienced as a kind of lonely burden. Neoliberal culture has trained us to think of identity as a personal project: You do you. Find your passion. Be your own boss. But what if that’s too much to carry alone?

This individualistic framing obscures the reality that identity is always relational.

Even Sartre’s radical freedom includes others—remember his “look” in Being and Nothingness?

We’re constantly being shaped, affirmed, or challenged by how others see us.

But the modern version of selfhood demands coherence without contradiction, clarity without ambiguity, and authenticity without uncertainty. That’s just not how real people work.

When Authenticity Becomes Oppressive

This might sound strange, but I think even “authenticity” has become oppressive. Once a liberating idea—live in accordance with your true self—it’s now often another performance metric.

You’re expected to be consistent, expressive, deeply self-aware… and somehow also spontaneous and flexible?

You see this especially in how people talk about their careers. I’ve had so many friends spiral because they’re not sure their job “aligns” with their identity. That’s wild when you think about it—your job is now supposed to be a reflection of your essence.

De Beauvoir’s idea of ambiguity is useful here.

She reminds us that we’re always suspended between being and becoming, between the concrete and the transcendent. We aren’t one coherent self—we’re many selves, in progress, in context.

So instead of seeing identity as a project with a “right” outcome, what if we saw it as a series of situated experiments?

Not in a nihilistic way, but in a way that acknowledges contingency and lets go of perfection.

The New Self: Multiplicitous, Not Monolithic

Here’s where I think things could get really exciting—for all of us thinking and writing about this stuff. Maybe the next step is moving past existentialism’s heroic individual, the one who stares into the abyss and boldly makes a choice.

Maybe the better model is narrative, ironic, or even distributed selfhood. Think Paul Ricoeur’s “narrative identity”—who you are is who you tell yourself you are, over time.

Or Judith Butler’s performativity—you become by doing, not by discovering some essential core.

This shifts the burden of choice. You’re not making irreversible declarations about who you are. You’re trying on, testing, revising. You’re authoring a story that can change.

And maybe—just maybe—that takes the pressure off.

Final Thoughts

Freedom is still freedom, but we need to stop pretending it’s effortless. The truth is, it’s hard to be your own compass in a world without shared direction. And while existential philosophy gave us tools to grapple with this, it didn’t predict how public and performative choice would become.

If there’s any comfort here, maybe it’s this: we’re not supposed to have it all figured out. We’re not failed projects—we’re ongoing drafts. Choosing doesn’t have to mean defining forever. Sometimes, it just means starting where you are.

And that, honestly, is enough.