[greybeard]

I think you have put the question of free will very well and have answered much of your own question.

I think that essentially free will is limited to our ability to resist or accept whatever appears in our life.
If we resist the "lesson" will reapear till we get the message and change our response, so as such there are only lessons/
"
Nothing is right or wrong till thinking makes it so"

Through maturity as you have said our take or perception of what went on changes so as we see it differently our action changes.

Our free willl response so to speak is governed by our conditioning- genes- DNA -- the works.

To give an example when I was a practising Hypnotherapist as an experiment I would say to people "what does the word dog mean to you?
I wold get one of three responses

(1) Fear -- I was bitten by a dog as a child, I could never trust any dog again.

(2) Indiference -- what have dogs got to do with my therapy?

(3) Love -- Oh I love dogs allways had one ---

Those were conditioned responses -- the person really could not have acted otherwise at that time.

However in the case of fear a dog phobia could be removed by hypnois.

So we are not locked into our conditioning when we realise what it is.
A willingness to change, see things differently is a great asset.

Moral code is not the same throughout the world, what is right in one country may not be acceptable in another.

An Arab may have more than one wife and the benefits of not expecting one woman alone to look after all the various things that women do so well would be laudable.
However many would see that as a form of sexist slavery.

In UK you would probably be locked up for bigamy.

There is no easy or difinitive answer to your question its just a question of what works for the individual.

But I love the statement. " We make plans and God laughs"

Not saying thats true.

Chris