In an age of endless choice, digital abundance, and limitless opportunities, we still feel restless, anxious, and unsatisfied. When we enjoy more personal freedom than ever before, it can be confronting to consider how more freedom may not always mean more flourishing. The Freedom Trap by Priyan Max Jeganathan explores this paradox and offers fresh insights and lifehacks on how we can reclaim a healthier vision of freedom.

Exploring psychology, philosophy, behavioural economics, and theology, Jeganathan unpacks the promises and shortcomings of modern freedom. With engaging stories—from viral dancing trends to choosing jam at the supermarket to the science of decision-making—Jeganathan challenges readers to consider whether our obsession with personal freedom has trapped us.

In this Q&A, Jeganathan reflects on why he wrote The Freedom Trap, what he learned from the process, and how he hopes readers and future generations will begin to reimagine freedom as something more purposeful, more relational, and more beautiful.

What is the book about?

The Freedom Trap is a book about decision-making. It explores the idea, the history, the nature, and the trappings of freedom in everyday life. What I try to do is to first track the explosion of freedom in our societies and in our everyday lives, and then to diagnose some of the trappings of freedom – some of the things that can enframe and restrict us. Things that point to the reality – both through the data, the science and through our personal experiences – that a life without limits can actually limit us.

Finally, the book sets down a more healthy and more beautiful understanding and model of freedom and sets out some practical lifehacks through which we can make better decisions. The book seeks to do all of this using aspects of behavioural economics, psychology, philosophy, and of course theology and ancient wisdom.

Why did you write the book?

I wrote the book because I noticed – as I think many of us do – that we are more educationally, academically, intellectually, and technologically advanced than ever before. And because of those realities, we have fewer limits and more options and more choices than ever. So, in any kind of classical technical sense, we are freer than we’ve ever been. Yet for a number of reasons, we remain – broadly speaking – more exhausted, dissatisfied, stressed and anxious that we’d expect to be. I wanted to

explore these strange patterns, to help people to make sense of them, and to offer a healthier way through which we can better understand what freedom can be and should be.

I wanted to understand the trappings and the restrictions that can come from unhealthy and incorrect understandings of freedom, and to set down some practical suggestions – simple ideas through which we can all make better decisions and embrace a healthier version of freedom going forward.

What have you learned from writing this book?

C. S. Lewis famously said, ‘I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not just because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.’ That really speaks to the biggest lesson that I took away from writing this book. The cultural, intellectual, and theological horsepower of the Christian message and specifically the Christian conception of freedom, really spoke to not just my everyday lived experience, but also to the modern science, research and data on freedom, decision-making and choice theory.

It was an incredible encouragement for me as a Christian, but also a fascinating insight to see how well the Christian vision of freedom resonates – this ancient vision of freedom – maps so well onto the modern understanding of what we need as a society and as individuals.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

I hope readers will find the book interesting and entertaining, but also relevant and insightful for their everyday lives. People generally today, tend to be busy, stressed and exhausted a lot of the time, and my real hope is that the book would just lighten their load a little bit, that it would offer some insights, that it would entertain them, that it would be something that they could take and apply the lifehacks that I put forward. That comes out of a lot of the data and the research and a lot of ancient theological Christian wisdom as well.

Ultimately, my hope is that people would take away insights and practices and some basic principles through which they can reclaim a better, more beautiful and a healthier vision and understanding of freedom as they make their choices and decisions.

How might we reconsider how we think about freedom?

There are two things I would love people to think about when considering the idea of freedom. The first is to actively and thoughtfully question this cultural norm that more freedom in and of itself is always a good thing – that a life without limits is all there is to human happiness and flourishing. And therefore, understanding that more freedom is not in and of itself always better, to understand that true freedom is not about fewer and fewer constraints, but about fulfilling our purpose and accordingly putting the right kinds of conditions and constraints around us to optimise for our happiness and flourishing.

As a parent, what is your hope and vision for your kids and future generations when it comes how they use their freedom?

My hope and vision for my kids is that they, and we, don’t just take these first principles and point them at ourselves in a frame that’s focused entirely on personal desire and short-term satisfaction. Rather, that they would embrace the idea that true freedom, as the book contends, is about fulfilling our purpose. And that has to be about more than just short-term desire and satisfaction. It’s about relationality, it’s about kindness, it’s about sacrifice, it’s about meaning, it’s about family, it’s about vocation – these higher purposes that go beyond our feelings and short-term satisfaction.

I hope that we can build a world, build communities, and build families that value these things. I’d love for my kids will be a part of this kind of movement and this reality that embraces a freedom that looks outwards to others. Freedom should never be just about us.

About Priyan Max Jeganathan

Jeganathan is a sought-after speaker and Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Public Christianity (CPX). A former lawyer and political and policy adviser, he was educated at the Australian National University and the University of Oxford and is undertaking a PhD in Law. He brings a unique blend of intellectual rigor and real-world insight to this topic.

Jeganathan has spoken in universities, political institutions and businesses including Samsung, Lego, Goldman Sachs and Amazon. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Canberra Times, and ABC’s Religion & Ethics Report. In 2024, he delivered the keynote address at the National Prayer Breakfast in Parliament House, Canberra.

Published by Acorn Press, The Freedom Trap is the sixth book in the Re:CONSIDERING series, by CPX.

Now available at Koorong.