On Injustice and Purpose
A lot of us has been said on the shortness of our lives and that the best way to live is by spreading compassion and joy wherever we go. Life is too short for hatred, grudges and ego-boosting. When looking at it this way and the fact that probably in 100 years, there will hardly be anyone who will remember us or talk about us (to put it in perspective: how many people do you know who lived in 2022? A few people you read about in history books. How often do you remember them or talk about them?)- you do feel that the best way to live is not to take our life too seriously and to be happy with what we have and try our best to be compassionate and empathetic to all.
With these thoughts and the blank screen of my television staring at me, I thought it was easy for me to say things like “Be compassionate and kind”, “Life is too short to be taken too seriously.”
But what about people for whom life was not this easy? What about people who have been wronged? People who have had to face injustice so bad that they have lost not days or months, but years and decades of their lives stolen for no wrongdoing on their end?
That got me searching for books that detailed the accounts of people who had been wrongfully convicted by the law to help me understand and answer the question, “Would they also think about life the same way?”
I finally found the book, “The Sun Does Shine” by Anthony Ray Hinton in the hope that this would be the perfect book that would help me answer my question.
Anthony Ray Hinton was kept on death row (was convicted with the death penalty) and incarcerated for 28 years for a crime he did not commit. The book recounts the entire story of Mr Hinton, from his childhood in Alabama to finally being released following an order from the U.S. Supreme Court. His case was led by Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the non-profit, Equal Justice Initiative, which aims to fight for cases like those of Mr Hinton’s.
It was a very moving book about the struggle and the questions that went into Mr Hinton’s mind when he was put on death row? He tells how he felt cheated by God, by the State (i.e. the State of Alabama) and all of humanity. What meaning did his life have when a young man of 29 years of age, was convicted of the death penalty, just because he was a black man.
There was a very moving passage in the book where he tells how the hatred which had filled him up after being put in prison, started changing to faith when he realised that everything is a choice. Every thought of ours is a choice. He could choose to be miserable and fill his heart with hatred for the rest of his life or he could make peace with the fact that he was now on death row, and this is how life would be for him in prison. It was a wonderful
“…Despair was a choice. Hatred was a choice. Anger was a choice. I still had choices, and that knowledge rocked me. I may not have had as many Lester had, but I still had some choices. I could choose to give up or to hang on. Hope was a choice. Faith was a choice. And more than anything else, love was a choice. Compassion was a choice.
I had a choice to reach out to these men or to stay in the dark alone.
…Everything, I realized, is a choice. And spending your days waiting to die is no way to live.”
Life may throw things but it is up to us to decide how do we. Sure it can take some time but ultimately the freedom to decide on how we want to think about our life lives with us. Mr. Hinton was able to find his purpose even with the confines of his prison cell.
Writing this review in the hope that more people can know about about Mr Hinton’s trial, about the wonderful work of Bryan Stevenson and EJI.
We all have a lesson or two to learn from this story.
P.S. Do consider donating to EJI if you believe in their work and purpose, here
