By Anonymous
I don’t talk about this to anyone. Not my friends, not my family, not even in the little social circles where everyone pretends to care about “global issues” over coffee and curated Instagram posts. But since this page is the only place I can be truly honest, I’ll let the words fall out here.
The truth is, I feel guilty for the life I live. Every single day.
I wake up in a bed that’s warm and safe. I scroll through my phone with Wi-Fi that never cuts out. I complain about traffic, bad customer service, and how Netflix doesn’t upload my favorite shows fast enough. Yet, in some corner of the world, a child my age or younger is waking up to the sound of gunfire, or maybe not waking up at all because they didn’t make it through the night. And what do I do? I scroll past. I sigh, maybe whisper “oh, that’s sad,” and then I move on.
The guilt gnaws at me like something I can’t spit out.
I remember once, there was this viral photo of a little boy washed up on a beach. His body small and fragile, his shoes still on. People reposted it everywhere, saying “Never again” and “The world must act.” I cried for a day. A whole day. I even posted a long caption about the tragedy of migration and how humanity needs to do better. And then? The next day, I was back to complaining about my coffee being too bitter. That picture haunted me for weeks, but slowly the haunting dulled. Until it became just another thing in the deep scroll of memory. And that’s when I realized, I don’t know how to live with the guilt of looking away.
donate sometimes. Not much. Just enough to feel like I’ve “done something.” A few dollars here, a monthly subscription there. But if I’m honest, half the time I do it more to quiet my conscience than to help anyone. I don’t even check where the money goes. I don’t want to know. It’s easier to believe it saves lives than to face the possibility that it just disappears into bureaucracy.
Sometimes I wonder, am I a bad person for not wanting to look suffering in the eye every single day? Am I cruel because I switch the channel when the news shows bombed cities, or because I scroll faster when the feed is flooded with starvation? My brain says, “You can’t carry the world on your shoulders.” But my heart whispers, “You’re carrying nothing at all.”
It’s not like I asked for privilege. I was just born into it. My parents worked hard, yes, but they also had opportunities generations before them didn’t. I didn’t choose to be born in a country where food is plentiful, where I can argue about politics without being jailed, where water comes out of taps like magic. Yet the fact that I didn’t choose it doesn’t erase the guilt that someone else didn’t choose war, hunger, or poverty either.
What eats at me the most are the moments of excess. Throwing away food because I “don’t feel like eating it.” Spending on things I know I don’t need. Paying for experiences like holidays, fancy dinners, concerts while somewhere, someone’s entire life could be changed with a fraction of that money. Every time I indulge, there’s a voice inside me that says, “This is blood money, whether you admit it or not.”
And yet, I keep living like this. I keep indulging and ignoring. Because I don’t know how not to.
There are days I fantasize about giving it all up. About quitting everything, selling everything, and moving to some field hospital or refugee camp to “make a difference.” But then reality crashes in, I don’t have the courage. I don’t have the strength. Maybe I don’t even have the selflessness.
So I live in between. Between knowing and not wanting to know. Between guilt and comfort. Between silence and screams.
I wonder if anyone else feels this way or if it’s just me, stuck in this endless loop of guilt and privilege. I wonder if other people also pray the quiet prayer I do before bed: “God, forgive me for not suffering with them. Forgive me for eating when they starve. Forgive me for sleeping when they’re awake in fear. Forgive me for being lucky.”
Sometimes I tell myself that maybe awareness is a kind of action. That by not forgetting completely, by carrying the guilt, I’m still honoring their stories. But then I remember, it’s not about my feelings. It’s about their lives. And that truth crushes me in ways I can’t even put into words.
So, here’s my confession, inked into these pages I’ll never show anyone:
I am privileged. I am guilty. And I don’t know how to live with both.
