Ever since I was a child, I was told that we were born into servitude. That we are, by nature and design, nothing more than servants of the Almighty - a subjects in a kingdom we did not choose, bound by laws we must not question.

And like many who are handed belief before they’re taught to think, I swallowed it at first. Because in my religion, doubt is dangerous. To question is to rebel. And to rebel is to risk being cast out - not just by Him, but by the very people who claim to speak for Him.

But something in me always stirred uneasily. Even as a child, I looked at the world - wide, unpredictable, full of possibilities. So then I and asked myself: how can a being endowed with free will be created only to obey? Why gift us with curiosity if we’re punished for it?

The very idea seemed contradictory. In a world bursting at the seams with liberty - where I can speak, choose, walk away, or run toward, why would I be born solely to submit?

Hence, I rejected it all. The labels, the chains, the script that had been written for me. I believed I could live unshackled, unburdened - answerable to no higher power, no societal mold. I thought freedom meant being free from serving anything.

But slowly, I began to see through the cracks. I watched people. Not the religious, but the secular, the "free" - and I saw the same patterns, just cloaked in different robes.

A slave to money holds a whip just so he can act like he owns a slave bought by money.

But he's not aware of one thing.

The truth is all of us are slaves to something.

Whether it’s wealth, power, status, love, comfort, pleasure, fear - we all bow to something. We all have an altar, even if we pretend we don't.

Some people kneel willingly. Others deny the kneeling, but their backs are bent all the same.

And so, maybe the real question is not whether we serve.. but what we serve - and whether it is worthy of our soul.