If every 'holier than thou' awakened individual could make their own decisions, there would be no need for a traumatic event to wake them up and 'put them on the right path'.
Put another way, if every 'woke person' made the decision entirely of their own volition - consciously - there would be no need for trauma to 'wake up' the person.
I believe we plan our realities on an interdimensional level.
We even plan the bad stuff. We do it because of lessons - we also do it because it is unavoidable at times - for example, we want control at a certain time in our lives and this time period of perception of control is 'paid for' by another time period of the opposite.
I've come to terms with the fact that we are governed by universal laws whether we like it or not. The more we push up against the boundaries of these 'laws' in whatever realm or dimension we experience ourselves in - the more we 'wake up' to 'reality'.
Eventually - we often forfeit our need to control due to waning energies and go with the flow. We find compromises and ways to subsidize the addiction or need for the perception of control.
The human experience carries us through natural cycles of the perception of control and the perception of the lack thereof. As we get older, we relinquish control and turn within.
For an individual to have 'made it' as far as consciousness goes (one who is enlightened, so to speak) - the choice to be conscious must be made without knowing the boundaries of this reality exist.
This, theoretically, would be a truly conscious choice.
Does it exist?
I don't know. (I've not seen it yet - or maybe I have without knowing it).
We gird and direct ourselves by placing ourselves in environments and experiences conducive to change or 'awakening'.
Is that free will? Kind of.
But not truly.
It is my conviction that this is the point of this reality - to allow for the potential for this theoretical definition of free will. Yet, when analyzed closely - free will as it is understood commonly by modern society is an illusion and a deception.
Trauma acts as a stark reminder of the boundaries of reality - through it - the experiencer is forced to 'awaken' to a realer reality than they experienced before.
If trauma exists in an individual's reality - it is both a gift and a curse. Accepting that the universe is made of love is found eventually to be the only way forward (a boundary I've discovered - you may yet need more trauma to know it! lol).
But do we accept this only because we have been forced to realise it through trauma, through a girding or guiding by our planned reality?
Shall we then write a book on how enlightened we've become in order to try and coerce people to become more aware of actual reality thus limiting their capacity for true free-will?
From a distance - humans appear like patterns. Up, down, left, right.
Over a long enough time line the origin and the destination are the same.
Enlightenment is the choice to realise consciously that no one is going anywhere because we never left the origin and every destination is a tool to direct the self but never an actuality in experience.
Once we get to our destination - are we satisfied?
How many times do we need to head to a destination to realise there is no destination?
It is simply a tool to direct the self. The idea of a 'going somewhere else' - the idea of 'progress' or 'getting better' - Tyler Durden in Fight Club put it quite succinctly - Self-improvement is masturbation.
The frustration of realising that nowhere has been travelled once a destination has been reached is a mild form of trauma.
Who chose to 'wake up' once this realisation was had?
Was it you?