By Maria Rodriguez
When adults begin to reminisce about their youth’s era out of frustration or nostalgia, they would start with “Back in the day…” or “When I was young…”.
Reading between the lines, all they want to say is: “Everything was simpler back then.” It’s easy to see the past as the time of simplicity, and the present as a time of chaos and destruction. But come to think of it, won’t today be the yesterday of tomorrow? Someday, one might see today as the “good old days” and today’s future as chaotic. If we go back to the time where my parents were adolescents, there was no Google or Waze. And if we do go all the way back, there was no electricity, no refrigerator. If all one wants is a simple life, why not re-simplify the complicated and keep simple what has been simplified?
This timeless dilemma has been passed down from one generation to another; keeping simple the statement and (sometimes) simplifying the problem as well. While one can’t travel back to their youth’s era, I believe that each generation has a dilemma of its own as there is a sense of simplicity in it. Now living the said peak of my youth, I often remember my younger years with the wish to go back. But the more I reflect, the more I vividly reminisce the pains and heartaches by which I was a victim of my innocence with empathy for my small self.
I believe that each generation has pains and joys of its own that help us grow and become the souls we’re meant to be; the belief that everything was simpler may possibly be clouded by nostalgia and the longing for the familiarity one has mastered. This seemingly great distance from our youth as we grow older isn’t as far as we ought it to be, we must equally remember the struggles and simplicities of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.