In society, selflessness and helping others, among other things, are to be considered positive and worthy of praise. However, the traits that one might view as exemplary are not so often demonstrated by others. In fact, the majority of the time, people are too concerned with their own thoughts and feelings to be aware of others.

In his speech, “This is Water”, Wallace analyzes how individuals have choices in how they live their lives. He addresses how people tend to “see and interpret everything through this lens of self” and fall into a “natural default-setting” of viewing others. Wallace points out that the average day for the average individual consists of “boredom and frustration”. Boredom and frustration born from the long day at work, the crowded aisles, the long checkout line, and the intensive rush-hour traffic. Wallace notes that these descriptions are “automatic”, but that our thoughts and feelings don’t have to be. We can choose to see that “everyone else in the line is just as frustrated”, or that some of the people have “much harder, more tedious or painful lives”. We are the ones who are free to decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day”.

There are different ways to see, view, and interpret everything. We have the ability to make choices in how we think and act. It is easy for us to to fall into an automatic way of thinking, but that if given enough effort, we can change how we perceive others and the world. To depart from the unconscious and to be aware of what matters. That, Wallace explains, is real freedom.