Hagintha Woods

It always bemused me when elders bemoaned the ungratefulness of the later generations. “They have no idea how hard we had it!” Is the common refrain echoed throughout centuries past, and it’s an addictive, easy one to fall into.

In my own job, as I slowly grew more experienced, I noticed a growing sense of pride when others walking my path were in situations better than my own, whether due to changing tides of societal sentiment, or a more conscious effort on my part. It felt like the days I’d struggled through had been given a greater meaning, served a bigger purpose, especially if there was a better road at the end of it for those who came after me, even if (and sometimes especially when) I had no major hand in the improvements made.

However, I also noticed an equally strong, reflexive urge to make said juniors know how good they had it, how much worse it had been when I’d been toiling through it. This urge grew especially strong when they stood in times I begged for, would have been thankful to have, and then complained, or called it challenging.

“I’ll show you hard!” That voice inside me would curse, shocked at the fact that they weren’t crying for joy, slighted as if I’d handpicked a gift for them only for it to be criticized.

But if I distanced myself, looked at what they were going through without tying my own own time of hardship, my own feelings of labour and struggle to it, the current situation wasn’t without it’s struggles.

As a society, whilst we are thankful for efforts made, continuing to progress demands some degree of ambivalence and comfort around what is, so we can see where else can be further worked on, and improved. If we had all just sat down and expressed our gratefulness for those who came before, idolized what we had because it was so much better than it used to be, then we would not feel the need to push on further.

Just as the people who lead the way aren’t obligated to leave perfection, those who follow should not be condemned for wanting to pave the path.

Many times, the cry comes from a feeling of envy.

We had our own hardships, ones we had to struggle through, and from that pain, we tried to forge a path where those who came after wouldn’t suffer like we did, or barring that possibility, would feel it with less intensity, or be better equipped for it. We tried to give others the path we would have liked, the salves we begged for, the lessons we wasted so much time to learn.

So to have them receive what we would have loved, what we were forced to survive without, and then voice dissatisfaction- it feels like a slap in the face, no matter how valid the criticism might be.

The feeling is an understandable one. But that does not make it conducive.

For in our bid to do good, we could have overcorrected, brought in other problems, or the context in which the problem we faced may have shifted with the times. Every action or inaction is a choice, and as well-intentioned as an idea can be, it’s quite different when applied to a life actively lived.

It does not mean that we should not try, but there needs to be an acknowledgement that those who walk the paths we have cleared might be having their own hardships that we would not have known them to face either.

All the more when they eschew said path entirely.

The ancestors I do not know crossed the sea in search of better opportunities. My aunt dropped out of school, confronting her fears of both blood and the dead to be a nurse, enduring the damage of shift work on her body in order to bring up her younger siblings. My parents fought to get me into a good school, and saved money for my future. They all survived so I could too, and with less strife.

In what felt like drifting along a gentle, continuous stream, I went to University and became a nurse during the Covid pandemic. I went from a student to a junior, then a senior, and I sensed the flow moving through me, the same gritted teeth determination to make it through and leave a current that those behind could ride to catch up in half the time. It was fulfilling, made me feel like I was a part of something, and I was sure that a life could be lived that way.

Certainly, harder ones had been slogged through before.

But perhaps it was the having of more time, the expansion of my worldview, or the acquiring of an education, all the things that people before me fought to put in my grasp. Perhaps it was luck. I stumbled into things that lit my soul aflame, that made me feel as though I were glowing from the inside.

I was accustomed to the validation that came with hard work bearing fruit, the inherited ritual of toiling to plant seeds that someone else would later harvest. I knew of the security that came with a monthly paycheck, the rounded curve of a full belly.

But writing allowed my soul to stretch, to drink of waters deep within the forest of my psyche, the ripples thrumming through my soul. Being around horses allowed me to hold space next to someone, feel the strength and electricity of a borrowed body, experience the way emotions could travel and transform a space and other living beings.

My sensitivity, openness, curiosity- within the experiences I found, the characteristics I’d fought to dampen and guard became assets. I’d like to say that I took to them intuitively and brilliantly, like a duck to water, but as with anything, I’ve had to learn, fail and practice, just as I continue to do now. But it was the nature of such activities that just the doing of them suffuses me with the many wing beats of joy, that every time I return to them, my entire soul sings, trembles with the force of my feeling.

It is everyone’s wish that those they care for will lead wider, better lives. It is then the unspoken assumption that taking time to care for ourselves will take away some of the energy that can be used to better others, that to bring joy upon others, we must take suffering for ourselves. Because of that, we labour. Because of that, others not enjoying themselves feels like betrayal. But what if such thinking keeps us trapped?

It is my belief that we all have things that we want to do, that we wish for, and that pursuing those things fervently helps us all curate happier, more satisfying lived experiences. Like a runner who equipped ourselves with good quality shoes and a satisfying, nutritious meal, improving our own lives then allows us to better guide and support others in then navigating their own troubles.

With the variance and uniqueness that comes with each person, if we supported workers getting paid adequately, respected jobs more, and encouraged people to enrich their lives and find what they wanted, we would result in a happier, more varied spread of lives and perspectives which would only strengthen all of us in the long run.

At the same time, I know our world isn’t structured for that, and there are many considerations that fall outside of my own vantage point.

At the same time, changes get started by someone taking the first step.

I am not wealthy nor secured enough that pursuing what I want is without risk. I do not have a security net other than the one I scuppered together whilst I was working. I have people who care for me, who I care for in turn, but I do not expect nor want them to be dragged into the mire of my own choices.

But I cannot bear the choice of inaction.

So I did the stupid thing. I slipped the pin of my salary from the grenade of my job, and lobbed it as far as I could toward my sense of normalcy and the way things should be. Then, I ran in the other direction, as far as I could, in the weight of my own convictions. I am moving within the unknown, lead by nothing but the call in my veins that surges through me with each struggling heartbeat: “This can all be different.”

It is not unheard of. Plenty of other people succeed as writers. A quote I’d heard before, from John Adams, comes to mind here: “I must study war and politics so that my children shall be free to study commerce, agriculture and other practicalities, so that their children can study painting, poetry and other fine things.” Though I am in my darkness, there are stars in my night sky.

But why, then, does it feel like betrayal?

In all the motivational speeches to follow one’s heart, no one mentions how it feels like letting everyone down, how it feels as if I am trampling on all the good wishes and efforts of those who invested in me. No one says how when you come from people who brought themselves up by surviving and enduring all that was thrown at them, saying I want to take a different path feels like I am stepping on my ancestors’ graves, belittling everything they’ve done. No one tells me that making the choice to listen to myself feels like I’m a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, feels like I should be more mature than this by now, feels like I’ve taken a hammer and started to wreck destruction around me for no good reason.

And I suppose it might be. What it is worth to me is something I can only tell in hindsight, after all.

But I think part of my feelings stem from the same reason why as a society, we have a tendency to claim to want a better world, but then feel the urge to denounce those who inhabit said world if they don’t do it ‘right’. We wonder what those around us would have created, but never think about what we’d like to build. We think that we don’t deserve it, that such thoughts belong to a privileged, esteemed few that we aren’t a part of yet. So we push that responsibility and power on to others, then get angry when they use it in ways that we would not have.

But that is not who we need to be.

We’ve always been feeling, always been making choices as we’ve lived. We all have ideas and ways to contribute that feed our soul. I believe I am worth the effort of creating my ideal life, of being a contributing member to an ideal community. This is not because I feel that I am uniquely worth it, but because I feel that everyone should be worth that effort from themselves.

Being an active part of the world is difficult. It requires one to confront themselves and their beliefs, to acknowledge that they could be wrong, to ask themselves what they really need. It is terrifying. It is empowering.

Through all those years and generations, we never stopped feeling and wishing, but many of us couldn’t put what we wanted into the world. It was a loss of creativity then, it is a waste of one now, and if we don’t step up, then it will be a waste of one in the future.

I’m just a girl who’s surviving, that’s trying to start living.

I am trying to restructure my life, to bare it down, examine it’s roots, then build it again brick by brick. I do not know where it will lead, or how long it will take. But I think it is worth it, so even if I lose my way, I hope that I can be a lantern within the darkness, the assurance that though someone has walked this path and felt these feelings before, even if I fail and regret everything, even if their path diverges from mine. That in the unknown that they traverse in their choices to form the life they want to live, they are not alone.

And if someone on that journey finds my records, perhaps we might be able to share insights on our journeys, alert each other about traps along the way, or even joke about the adventures we’ve had.

And if that someone is younger than me, just starting out and struggling, I hope they have more, feel braver, and feel more assured in their choices than I do. I hope that I will then not tell them about how much easier they have it. I hope that I am kind, that I will be able to welcome them in and tell them that I can’t wait to see the life and world that they will build.