The freedom to choose is not the default: You were born into a freedom your ancestors could only imagine...
reflections
The freedom to choose is not the default: You were born into a freedom your ancestors could only imagine. The freedom to ask: What fulfills me? Where do I belong? What kind of life do I want to live? You can pause. Reimagine. Refuse. Begin again - not from fear, but from desire. You can turn inward and ask not only what the world needs - but what you need, too. The miracle isn’t simply that these questions exist. The miracle is that you’re allowed to ask them.
This condition of self-determination is not the natural state of human life. It is rare. It is recent. And it was built - deliberately, painfully - by those who had no such freedom themselves.
This was paid for: You did not stumble into autonomy. You inherited it. And that inheritance was not handed down in ease. It was earned - through quiet endurance - by those who came before you. Fathers who worked without pause in order to keep a roof over yours. Mothers who gave up sleep, health, and peace of mind so you could be fed, clothed, and whole. Aunts and uncles who treated you as their own. Grandparents who crossed borders with no map, no language, and no guarantee. Communities who carried the weight of exclusion, of being asked to build what they were never allowed to belong to. These were not small hardships. They were not temporary. They were years. They were generations. They were lives narrowed down to labour so yours could stretch wide with possibility. They called it duty. They called it love. But make no mistake - it was cost. And you are standing on it.
You are living inside someone else’s dream: There are moments - quiet, ordinary - when the truth reveals itself. When you weigh two job offers. When you sit in a café, wondering what city might feel like home. When you take an afternoon to create something beautiful, simply because it calls to you. This isn’t indulgence. It’s inheritance. You are not simply living your own life. You are living the continuation of lives cut short, interrupted, never fully expressed. You are the quiet fulfillment of hopes that never had time to take shape. The living proof that their sacrifices were not in vain. They didn’t have the luxury to wonder what might bring them alive. They worked so you could ask the question. They didn’t have the freedom to choose what life they wanted. They gave that freedom to you. You do not need to follow their path. But you cannot forget what it took for you to have one at all.
Choice is not entitlement. It is ethical inheritance: We are a generation taught to treat freedom like breath - ever-present, unearned. But freedom is not the default. It is built. It is inherited. And if you are lucky, it is maintained. You may have the right to rest - because someone else stayed awake to ensure it. You may have time to create - because someone else spent theirs cultivating your inner artist. You may say no to what drains you - because someone else said yes to what emptied them. This isn’t about guilt. It’s about clarity. Choice - real choice - is not abundance. It is a responsibility. To stand in freedom is to stand on the labour, loss, and restraint of those who came before you. You owe no imitation. But you owe respect. And respect looks like presence.
What it means to make your life a thank-you letter: This letter is not written in words. It is written in how you move through the world. In how you approach your work - with seriousness, because you were free to choose it. In how you face your own heart - because they never had room to understand theirs. To live well is not self-importance. It is respect. It is to carry yourself with intention. To meet your days with devotion. To treat your choices not as ornaments, but as offerings. To make your life a thank you letter is not to perform gratitude. It is to embody it.
They bled so you could choose: This is not a call to burnout. Not a call to productivity for productivity’s sake. It is a call to live awake. To become someone who does not drift. Who does not squander what was purchased in silence, sweat, and survival. Your mother may never have told you how tired she was. Your father may never have admitted what emptied him. But your life is the record. And your only obligation is to live it like it matters.
If you are going to create, create something real. If you are going to rest, rest with reverence. If you are going to collapse, collapse in the direction of growth. Your predecessors did not have the privilege of breaking. They did not dream of alignment or ease. They survived because they had to. They endured so you could arrive. So you could look up. Begin. Contribute. Shape.
The sacredness of the ordinary: To walk slowly. To travel. To study deeply. To leave a job that depletes your spirit. To stay consistent with a hobby no one claps for. To say no - gently, and without apology. These acts are not trivial. They are sacred. Because they rest on soil once scorched by survival. Because they make visible the labour that made them possible.
And when you take them seriously - when you approach even the smallest parts of your life with care - you reveal what would otherwise go unseen: That your life is an answered prayer.
The ordinary, done with intention, becomes reverence. So when you wake unsure of your direction, begin here. To live with care is to honour what came before you. It is how you write back.
If you’re going to break, break forward: You are allowed to fall apart. You are allowed to feel lost. But let your disorientation move you. Let your struggle reshape you. Let your pain deepen you. Let your uncertainty evolve you. Do not waste this inheritance in sleepwalking. Do not let passivity erase what was hard-won. If you are going to break, break toward transformation. If you are going to fall, fall into alignment. If you are going to cry, let it be in the process of becoming. You do not need to be perfect. But you must be present. You must remember what it took to have this life at all. We do not need more performance. We need more people who rise - not with hustle, but with honour. Who move forward - not out of obligation, but because they remember the weight of what was carried for them.
Make it count: You do not owe your ancestors’ obedience. You owe them sincerity. Sincerity in your effort. In your direction. In how you live awake.
Make your life a thank-you letter. Not loud. Not performative. But steady. Honest. Unmistakably sincere. Let it be written in how you move through the world. In what you create. In how you heal. In how you rest. In who you become.
Neshmeeya Abbas is an author based in Amsterdam. She can be reached at neshmeeya@gmail.com
