Helaman 14:30 ’Remember, my brethren...ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.’"If you feel pressed in and pressured and not free, it may be for one of two reasons. One, if you have lost freedom, possibly it has been through some irresponsible act of your own. Now you must regain it. You may be indentured-indentured to some habits of laziness or indolence; some even become slaves to addiction. The other reason is that maybe if you are not free you have not earned it. Freedom is not a self-preserving gift. It has to be earned, and it has to be protected.
For instance, I am not free to play the piano, for I do not know how. I cannot play the piano…The ability to play the piano, the freedom to do that, has to be earned. It is a relatively expensive freedom. It takes an investment of time and of discipline. This discipline begins, as discipline usually does, from without. I hope that you do not have contempt for discipline that originates from without. That is the beginning. A parent usually presses a youngster to practice the piano. But somewhere, it is hoped, practice grows into self-discipline, which is really the only kind of discipline. The discipline that comes from within is that which makes a young person decide that he wants to be free to play the piano and play it well. Therefore, he is willing to pay the price. Then he can be free from supervision, from pressure, from whatever forms of persuasion parents use.”(Elder Boyd K. Packer, That All May Be Edified, p. 254)
“These words taken from the Book of Helaman indicate the purport of what I should like to say this afternoon…Among the immediate obligations and duties resting upon members of the Church today, and one of the most urgent and pressing for attention and action of all liberty loving people, is the preservation of individual liberty. Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give. It is inherent in the spirit of man. It is a divine gift to every normal being. Whether born in abject poverty or shackled at birth by inherited riches, everyone has this most precious of all life's endowments -- the gift of free agency; man's inherited and inalienable right.
Free agency is the impelling source of the soul's progress. It is the purpose of the Lord that man become like him. In order for man to achieve this it was necessary for the Creator first to make him free. ‘Personal liberty,’ says Bulwer Lytton, ‘is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.’” (President David O. McKay, Conference Report, Apr. 1950, p. 32)
“The great misery of departed spirits in the world of spirits, where they go after death, is to know that they come short of the glory that others enjoy and that they might have enjoyed themselves, and they are their own accusers.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 310-11)
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