Free will is the ability/responsibility to choose.  It is not something that we have or have not, but something that is always there to varying degrees.  Choices are realized through awareness.  These choices are enabled or hindered by situational variables.  These situational variables are very much a product of choices made in the past.  The variable that determines the choices made is self awareness.  This is because most of what we choose is based on who we believe ourselves to be.  Think; “what would I do in any given situation” and you will see that it depends on who you understand yourself to be.  Therefore, it matters less to the well being of the situation, how many choices you have to choose from, than it does the ability to discern between those choices.  Focusing on self awareness seems to be the optimal way to bring about a collective existence which…