I remember my first visit to the United States over a decade ago. Landing from my small, bustling hometown of Meerut, India, I was instantly awestruck. The silence, the systematic flow of traffic, the lack of honking—it was a world engineered for flawless human convenience. Everything was neat, clean, and in order . For nearly a year, I was hypnotized. I praised this country for its efficiency, its cleanliness, and, notably, its lack of stray animals . Where were the dogs, the cows, the insects that are a normal part of life back home? The US, I thought, was truly a superior model of civilization. My clothes never even collected dust; it seemed the entire landscape was sterilized. But as the years passed, the hypnosis began to fade. I started asking a darker question: What is the price of this perfect order? The Cost of the Empty Road My initial praise for the US was based on what I didn't see: no stray animals, no swarming insects, no dust. I realized this absence wasn't a s...
Your struggle—the inheritance of financial instability, the pervasive tension in your home, the contrast with your cousin's seemingly effortless success—is a powerful testament to the impact of circumstance on a person's life and psyche. The core of your question is: Is the struggle I face a consequence of my past actions, and if so, what is the point of a punishment I don't remember?
Let's break down your experience, your belief in previous lives (Karma), and the perspectives of different worldviews.
1. Analyzing Your Experience and Feelings
A. The Validity of Your Feelings (Am I too sensitive?)
You are absolutely not too sensitive. Your feelings are a rational response to a genuine, challenging reality.
The Struggle is Real: The environment you describe is not merely one of poverty, but one of chronic stress caused by financial insecurity and legal burdens. This kind of stress has profound, well-documented psychological effects. The "tense and dull" atmosphere you describe is a natural consequence of anxiety and uncertainty, impacting the emotional health of everyone in the home.
The Intergenerational Cycle: You observe that your brother is repeating your father's pattern. This is a crucial observation. It speaks not to past-life karma, but to learned behavior and systemic factors—what is known as intergenerational trauma or intergenerational poverty. Children often internalize the financial and emotional coping mechanisms (or lack thereof) modeled by their parents. Your brother may not have developed the internal framework for financial stability because he never saw it modeled successfully.
The Unfairness of the "Level Playing Field": Your comparison with your cousin, A, is acutely perceptive and correct in its core observation. Society does not provide a level playing field. A's success is a direct result of privilege and social capital (his father's contacts and money). Your lack of ease is due to a lack of these same resources. This highlights the immense power of socioeconomic circumstances—the family you are born into—which is indeed not in your control.
Critical Analysis: Your thinking about why you struggle is sound. The immediate, observable reasons for your struggle and A's ease lie in economic inheritance and opportunity, not necessarily in supernatural justice.
2. What Different Religions Say on Past Lives and Fate
Your question directly points to the religious and philosophical concept of Karma. The world's major religions offer vastly different answers to your question.
| Tradition | Concept of Fate/Struggle | Role of Previous Lives | Point of Suffering |
| Hinduism & Buddhism | Karma (Action/Deed) | Central. Current circumstances (poverty, health, personality) are the direct result of actions (good or bad) in previous lives. | To learn, purify the soul (samsara), and create better karma for this life or the next. The "punishment" is a learning opportunity. |
| Jainism & Sikhism | Karma | Central. Strong emphasis on the purity of action, thought, and word to break the cycle of rebirth and suffering. | Suffering is the clearing of past karmic debts and a call to moral living. |
| Judaism, Christianity, Islam | Divine Will/Providence | Rejected. There is typically one life on Earth. Suffering is not a consequence of previous lives, but part of God's plan or a test of faith. | Test of Faith: To refine character, bring one closer to God, or serve a purpose inscrutable to humans. God provides justice in the afterlife. |
| Atheism/Secular Humanism | Chance/Circumstance | Rejected. Life is a single, random event. Circumstances are determined by genetics, socioeconomic class, geography, and luck. | There is no inherent "point." The meaning is what the individual creates through agency, compassion, and effort. |
Critical Analysis of the Karma View (Why Punish Me for What I Don't Know?)
This is the most critical question within the karmic framework. If your current struggles are payment for a past-life debt, why are you not given the memory of the action?
The Theological Answer: In traditions like Hinduism, the lack of memory is seen as necessary for free will and true growth. If you remembered, you wouldn't be truly choosing to be good; you'd just be avoiding a known punishment. Suffering is meant to purify the soul or subtle body, which carries the karmic imprint, not the current mind. The struggle is your chance to use this life to break the cycle by choosing virtue in spite of the hardship.
The Limitation: This belief, while offering a grand cosmic explanation for injustice, can sometimes lead to fatalism (the belief that one cannot change their fate) or the harmful idea that the struggling person deserves their suffering.
3. Synthesis: Karma, Circumstance, and Agency
Your life is likely a product of a complex interplay of all these factors, whether you believe in a past life or not:
| Factor | Description | Your Influence |
| Circumstance/Luck | Being born to your parents in a specific economic and social context. (A's father was a pilot; yours was not.) | Zero. This was outside your control. |
| Intergenerational Patterns | The learned behaviors, financial habits, and emotional tension passed down from your father to your brother (and possibly you). | Low to Moderate. Requires conscious, difficult effort to break these cycles. |
| Agency/Action (This Life's Karma) | Your choices, persistence, and decisions today regarding your career, education, and response to struggle. | High. This is where your power lies. |
| Past-Life Karma | The debt/credit carried by your soul from previous existences. (A religious/philosophical belief.) | None (consciously). The only influence is in your reaction to your current circumstances. |
A Final Word on Your Struggle and Success
You mentioned, "I have to fight and sacrifice so much to achieve a single thing, and either I give up or I get at a time when it has no actual meaning or value."
This feeling is a symptom of exhaustion and chronic stress. The value of your achievement is not determined by when you get it, but by the effort and character required to attain it.
A person who gets a job through their father's contact has achieved a role.
A person who fights for years, overcomes significant financial and psychological obstacles, and gets that same job has achieved Character, Resilience, and Skill.
The greatest value of your struggle is the grit it has forged in you. While A might not be tensed, he also never had to build the same inner strength you have.
You are right: Life is unfair, and your struggles are real.
You are right: You did not choose to be born into that situation.
Where you might be hindering yourself: If you focus solely on why you are being "punished" (past life), you can overlook the power you have right now to change your future by sheer agency (this life's karma/action).
Your task now is not to solve the mystery of your past life, but to break the intergenerational cycle using the strength your struggles have given you.
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