On being part of a family (and why you can’t opt out of caring)

There was a night when I thought about what family actually meant. It wasn’t about obligation; it was about showing up to lift a member when they are struggling without waiting for them to cry for help. Being in a family means you are willing to carry a load that’s not even yours to carry because you understand that a family is not a collection of individuals managing their own loads but a people choosing, over and over, to lift each other.

Being part of a family means you are never alone. It also means that as you grow up, you stop being comfortable being a dead weight. Not out of fear of judgment but out of love. Because when you love the other members of the family, you can’t help but want to be the kind of person who is eager to help others carry their load, adding something to the circle rather than constantly taking from it.

The selfish ones? They have probably misunderstood family entirely. They treat it like a safety net they can take for granted—a place only to draw from, never to give back to.