Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... … - Stephen Covey

Self awareness gives us ultimate human freedom.

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.

Remember, it isn't the snake bite that does the serious damage; it's chasing the snake that drives the poison to the heart.