A cousin came to visit and was requesting his mom to get him an expensive watch. It was shocking to my system. The demand was outrageous to me. He was relentless in his request. My patience was giving away.

Then I told him off over dessert. “You should buy such expensive things when you start working.”

“Buy this when its own your money. Travel when you are married. Go to watch movies with your husband. Change the curtains when its your own home. Buy a better phone when you start working.”

Everything came rushing back pointing back to needle of time long forgotten - it wasn’t me admonishing him. I was parroting what I heard over and over again over years and years. Your desires are secondary to adult milestones. You haven’t earned joy yet.

It was hard to hear those words that used to pierce me through my chest being uttered to someone else through my own mouth but recognising this inheritance was important to me. Recognition of self, seeing and noticing the patterns that we perpetuate out of ignorance and laziness of thought is the absolute first step to breaking the cycle.

If the ability to tell right from wrong should turn out to have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to 'demand' its exercise from every sane person, no matter how erudite or ignorant, intelligent or stupid, he may happen to be.
Hannah Arendt