Coexist
Am I entitled? I was born into advantages that have set me up for a good life. But am I entitled? I worked hard and made the most of those advantages. But am I entitled? I have dedicated my life to lifting everyone up with the success I have enjoyed. But am I entitled? Yes, I deserve all the good fortune that was bestowed upon me.
Yes, I am privileged. But to what does that privilege entitle me? Am I entitled to my success, born on the backs of those without such advantages as I? The truth is we are all entitled. We all deserve success and happiness. I’m no more or less deserving than the homeless man, the forgotten mother, the loathed immigrant. We are all entitled equally. But only some of us are lucky enough to have been given the keys to open the doors to our successes. Take away the keys we were given by the luck of our birth and we all would be homeless, forgotten and loathed.
Don’t forget, I was given so much more than material wealth and resources. I received the guidance, wisdom and favor of a loving family who gave me a foundation, a deeply ingrained belief in my own potential. And I was given a map and tools to guide me on my path.
Gratitude
Those values we feel make us more deserving than the others were actually gifts to us from others. We weren’t born with them. In fact, my privilege started long before I was ever born. And yes, I was damn well entitled to it, to all of it. But because of a lucky stroke of fate, I got far more success than many, and less than others.
The truth is we are all entitled to what I was afforded, our privilege, as is every living soul on this planet. But some of us were just plain lucky. I was born into a white middle class family. I was not born in Haiti. We need to acknowledge that luck, that privilege. Some of us might call it blessing, favor from God. Some of us were simply blessed with more or less than others, almost as if fate were an arbitrary force.
I believe these blessings obligate us to help those less fortunate, to use whatever resources and talents we have been given to lift others up. We must ask every day, “how can I be of service to others with the gifts with which I have been uniquely blessed?” That obligation necessitates creativity and elicits from me the fullest of my creative potential. That is the force that drives me. That is how I choose to live my life, what I choose to do with my privilege.
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