As I ran alongside the riverbank on a clear, crisp fall afternoon in my new city, following a dirt path through a canopy of trees just beginning to turn colour, I should have felt relaxed. Instead, the moment when I normally let go, letting the music from my headphones seep into my consciousness and my mind drift and clear, didn’t come.

Our responsibility is not to hand the next generation a version of the past stripped of discomfort. It is to help them carry its hard truths without being crushed by them—and to trust them to create something wiser and more compassionate from what remains.

I’ve felt it before—that subtle tightening in my body when the bill arrives. A kind gesture should feel warm and generous, but sometimes it leaves lingering doubts: What does this cost me? I’ve always bristled at the word beholden: obliged, indebted, bound by someone else’s favour. Raised to value independence, I learned to resist becoming indebted to others. Yet I also absorbed the unspoken social rules around me: the expectations about who pays, who owes, and what it all means.