Heidegger introduced the identification of the "Dasein," the part of yourself you're probably most familiar with as you're lying in bed waiting for sleep to overtake you. Dasein is the "you" that examines yourself almost as a separate entity; it's often been identified as a spirit.
As a social animal and in our modern predicament where we're forced into social institutions from kindergarten until grade twelve, it's easy to become a construct of your social environment; to let the opinions and definitions applied by someone else dictate your character. Of course, as a social primate, the idea of living authentically, or separate from the social consensus, weighs heavily on our shoulders.
So how does one live authentically? According to Heidegger, the first step is asking the question "What does it mean to be?" Because in the pursuit of this often tantalizing, often enriching, and sometimes depressing, question, we must confront our own mortality and conjure up our own meaning. No one can live your life or die your death, it's entirely yours to live and die.
Do humans possess true free-will? Or are our actions ultimately determined beyond our cognizance, giving the illusion of free-will? Personally, I'm a proponent of a sort of constrained-freedom idea, in that, at any given time the choices available to us are limited and our choice is determined by listless variables that likely operate sub-consciously and many that operate consciously.
Furthermore, the ability to detect the contributing variables varies by the person. Some people are super-tuned, capable of detecting most of their motives and variables that factor into any given decision, whereas some people make immediate and irrational decisions in the absence of consideration. Given that mindfulness is a measurable skill, I'd assert that your level of active mindfulness would determine how "free" you are in deciding your actions.
I think it intimately connects to what Heidegger identified as our "Dasein." The individual-awareness that we each independently possess, and how it can be trained. To illustrate a rudimentary analogy, imagine your dasein as a muscle. The more you exert your dasein and tread into previously unknown territory, the more resilient and tough it will become. As your dasein gradually becomes more resilient and tough, you'll begin to notice that you're consequently becoming more reflective about everything, from the minutiae of existence to the more grandiose exigencies of existence.
Certainly, there is always a limited pool of options for us to fish from, but as our dasein becomes increasingly competent, our fishing gear improves. We acquire sonar, an advanced fishing-rod and superior bait. We become able to select rather than allow, which fish we hook.
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