Hurt people hurt people (but not necessarily)

I was recently talking to a long-distance friend about his latest promotion at his job. He mentioned the new recruits joining in, saying how naive were they, how unprepared for the struggles ahead of them. It was a tough job, so their overeager demeanor was, understandably, a source of amusement. I asked whether he did actually prepare any of them during their interactions or give them a word of advice. His reply was “Why should I? Nobody helped me out. Let them figure it out themselves.”

Booo.

Really though? I get it. 

Life is unfair. We all have our shares of obstacles on our way to anything of worth. Over time, after a certain amount of scraping and toiling, we make it, maybe not all the way, but are in a better place - a promotion, a pay raise, a respectable position in the family, a position of status and power in a group of  friends. Some concessions, some bargaining, some acceptance and some fight. Time goes on, and then comes a time to give way to a new generation with a similar set of challenges we faced when we started out. 

Now here come two options on how to deal with this group. 

One is the noble way- we fight their fights and use their inputs to pave way for a deeper systemic change which we had overlooked, or were too exhausted to get into on our way up because we had more basic challenges to handle. This way gives us a second chance to look at the same situation from a different lens and understand the perspective of someone new. Say at work, you join an organization at a time when there was deep bureaucracy, no sense of transparency. People who were competent were put on probation or moved to different geographies for questioning some archaic rules or for refusing to say 'yes sir' to everything. While you, a new joinee at the time, saw this clearly, you kept your mouth shut in an effort to stay in the good books of your bosses and do your best to not make unnecessary enemies. You worked consistently and made good friends with your colleagues and customers and eventually made it to a respectable position within the organization. Now when you see new joinees inducted, you make sure they don't face the same kind of environment you so detested when you came in. So, you reach out to them and help them in understanding the right people who will support them and the nuances of the job or the organization. You take in their suggestions for change and try to amplify the message wherever you can. 

I believe we all would like to be in this category. However, there is another category of people. One where the pain of climbing up the ladder, so to say, is so deep that it is impossible to rise above it. The same example when applied to this category makes an employee feel betrayed when they see a new joinee who doesn't face the same obstacles they did. Because time changes, processes change, and people change (or at least people move out and in). With these changes, so does social change happen. An organisation and its customers which could never imagine a female working on the field doing sales now doesn't bat an eye when another female does the same 10 years later. Sometimes the change is so incremental people barely notice. And then years pass by, and you see the same change from the eyes of a newcomer and realize how much the degree of change really is. 

Though we'd like to think we fit into the first category, marveling at the progress made, but more often than not, it's not the case. It's the second- where the eye opening realisation creates a deep, even unwanted resentment for the newcomer that had it too easy. They didn't have to fight their seniors to get credit for their work, they didn't have to hold their pee the whole day because there was no washroom nearby. Not that these things don't happen anymore. That is how life works, that is how systems work. But there is improvement, eventually. Not as much as we'd like, but 20% is better than 0%. And seeing that feels… unfair. 

You know why? Because it is. 

The pioneers in any field, in any industry, in any society face resistance. And it is always harder for the one who goes first. Apply the same to any other situation. Women who are themselves subject to unfair patriarchal expectations become upholders of the same barriers that restricted them. 

We’ve all heard the story, right? ‘Women are each other's biggest enemies.’ The tales of scary, vindictive mothers-in-law echo loudly in our ears whenever we go to someone’s wedding or look at prospective matches. An entire industry of television across the world has benefitted from capitalizing on this ongoing struggle for control between the newly wed and the mother-in-law. 

Is it a gendered issue though? The principle remains the same. Hurt people hurt people.

Women too far ingrained in the system do not see its horrors anymore, or they gain a privileged enough position to finally reap its benefits, benefits they don’t want to let go. A mother in law who was previously herself was a newlywed and had to constantly bend to the will of her in-laws finally has a say in the family unit. And there is no reason she won't choose to continue upholding the same beliefs that she was taught when she got married unless it is from the extreme generosity of her heart. 

How many people do things that are right, selfless and at the cost of their own happiness? And how many people do things that are more convenient? 

When given the choice, most people choose the latter. Choices that make us feel in control. Choices that mean, finally, 'our time has come'. The same employee who swore to change the systems in his organisation now wants to uphold the same systems as the boss. He either thinks that this is the way things are done here, or sees this as an opportunity to finally control his narrative and be in charge instead of having to bend to the newcomers' will or change, AGAIN. Oftentimes, the newbies who were once the carriers of change become custodians of rigidity. Women who struggle in a patriarchal system become its upholders. 

It is a basic instinct to not want to feel like a victim. Seeing someone else feel the same pain we did might feel like a win, and for a moment, it really does. It makes us feel part of the group who is 'above' such challenges. We don’t need to continue proving our worth anymore to fit in. 

Fighting FOR someone at the expense of your own privilege is harder than people give it credit. We tell ourselves ‘Well, it’s just the way the world works’, or ‘I can’t right every wrong alone, there is other important stuff to get done’, but I think there is a voice in our head we hush every time we make the second choice. I empathise with that, it’s the easier route to take, not because of cowardice, but because the first choice is that much harder. It involves acceptance of the brokenness of our systems in place, to forgo your privilege in some way, to accept the pain you felt and not let it spread. It’s significantly harder because it involves an active participation, to not be witness to history repeating itself, to not become numb.

People who have deeply been hurt end up hurting people IF they don't take time to reflect, if they don't become disillusioned, which is a difficult feat to establish in a world with many wrongs, however small. They slowly chip away at the idealist within you and make you feel stupid for even wanting a better world. 

But we all know that isn’t true. Without idealists, there would be no change. We would not see any good in the world. There is a fundamental, innate quality of wanting to make, if not the entire world, the tiny world we see around us, a better place. Why else would someone leave a high paying job to work for a small teaching job in a charity? Why would a group of people stand all day in sweltering heat of 45 degrees, offering cool, refreshing drinks to passing people for free? Why does anyone advocate for reform? 

There is no reward, no recognition at the end of the line with a banner saying ‘Congrats! You are a great human being!’ But anyone who has ever done anything remotely good knows that it isn’t for the recognition anyway. That even though there is no reason to help anyone else, we do. We owe each other something even if no one keeps a record.

Disillusionment is a human response, but so is the need for betterment, for empathy, for hope. We cannot control everything in the world around us, but we can control something, we can affect change, however microscopic.

There is something within us that moves us to do better, to be better, to want someone else to be happy, or maybe just a tad better off. The idealist can find a way to fit into the world all while changing what that world looks like, even if it means accepting pain they experienced as part of their journey and still making an active choice to not let it inflict others who are starting out theirs.

It’s not easy, and it needs constant reminders and effort. Perhaps this is my way to give myself that reminder.