Everything I have is hard earned.
Mine is a generation raised by parents on good values and basic incomes. We were told to work hard, to be grateful, to be grounded.
Much later in life - too late really - as work took me to the interiors of my country, exposing me to lives far less fortunate than mine, I understood something - my necessities were most people’s luxuries.
It challenged my pride in being self-made. Not because I did not work hard but because I finally understood I was not running the same race as everyone else.
I was not a result of “in spite of” but a product of “because of”. A very inconvenient truth.
Hard work is important. Hard work is essential, basic and irreplaceable. However, no matter how hard we work, some of us spend entire lives trying to outrun the accident of our birth.
Where we were born and who we are born to are among the defining realities of our lives. They shape the chances we get, the securities we inherit, and the opportunities we access. Some lives begin with a jumpstart. Others are locked in the fight for survival.
Does that mean only privilege determines success? Not entirely. But it definitely makes the road much easier.
There is comfort in believing we earned every inch of it. Because if we earned all of it, then those who have less simply did not work hard enough. Ah, the seduction of moral superiority…
“I earned it” is a beautiful story we tell to explain our success. It is rarely the whole story.
Perhaps growing up is realising that effort matters… but where we begin shapes how far we get to travel.
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