Zach Freeman (Dec. 6, 2013) When I began my undergrad at Texas Christian University in the fall of 2009, I wanted to be a firefighter paramedic. There was even a two-week period where I thought I was going to go premed. After that, it was an audio engineer, a ranch manager, a pilot, and so on and so forth. I won’t walk you through the entire process that brought me to starting my own company, but I believe sharing the beginning of that process was important to demonstrate something great about our country: the freedom of choice.

In my example, the freedom I experienced was the freedom to choose what I wanted to pursue for a career, however we all experience other freedoms every day. These freedoms range from what we will eat or wear to what we can say. It’s easy to take these freedoms for granted as most of us have never known a world without them, but I believe it’s important to stop from time to time and appreciate the amount of freedom we have being United States citizens.

One freedom that I am particularly thankful for is the freedom to start and run my own business. While this freedom certainly isn’t unique to the United States, it is still something that the United States makes easy (for the most part) to take advantage of. Anyone can start a business by filling out some simple paperwork provided by his or her state’s Secretary of State and paying a small fee. Additionally, with companies like Legalzoom.com, starting a business has never been easier. Having the freedom to start my own company, Veterans Moving America, has allowed me to pursue my dreams and feel like I’m making a difference in this world, something that can be hard to feel as a 22 year old fresh out of college.

That brings me back to where we started: my freshman year. The list of seemingly random career ideas I mentioned at the beginning of this post isn’t actually random. They all stemmed from the same desire: to have a difference in this world. Whether it was saving lives, capturing someone’s passion through music, or getting people from A to B, I wanted to have an impact. Having the freedom and ability to start my company has allowed me to do just that. That’s something I’ll never take for granted.

(Photo by Wikipedia Commons)