4 Unfair Advantages in Life —That People Take For Granted

Yahoo

11 hours ago

What's fair and unfair is largely a matter of perspective.
We often assume things as normal and accepted, in fact, they are blessings we take for granted. Perhaps this is why it's useful to examine those advantages. Within their visibility, we come to understand just how beautiful our life actually is.
1. The classroom is indicative of home life
My friend works as a middle school math teacher. It's a thankless job, but he enjoys helping students.
I asked him, 'So are there any commonalities with your worst students? The ones who struggle the most?'
He immediately said, 'They typically come from troubled homes.'
He elaborated and explained that 'troubled' meant a lot of things. They moved constantly. They suffered from abuse and neglect. The mother had boyfriends coming and going. It was a long list.
A huge body of research has echoed his observation. Instability can permanently damage cognitive development and emotional wellbeing. The younger the person, the more unstable the living situation, the greater the long-term impact.
My childhood wasn't perfect on this front. I moved every year of my life and it caused my grades, social life, and well-being to suffer greatly.
Every year of a child's life is important, but parents really need to ace the first 5 years. Elites already know this — which is why top preschools in NYC often have a years-long waitlist.
This world is filled with adults who spend the rest of their lives trying to recover from a bad childhood. No parent is perfect. But take time to appreciate what good they did bring into your lives.
2. Good luck or bad luck?
Imagine being born in the 19th century. You are diagnosed with tuberculosis as a child and given a narrow chance of surviving.
Later, as an adult, you are on a large commercial ship (the Titanic), working as a stewardess — when it runs into an iceberg. You manage to secure an escape raft while the majority around you freeze to death.
Later, you go on to work as a stewardess on the HMHS Britannic, another cruise line, and it gets torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. And if that wasn't enough, you work on another cruise ship, the RMS Olympic, which collides with another ship.
This is the life of 'The Unsinkable' Violet Constance. After being on 3 major, world-known boat incidents, she bravely continued working on ships well into old age.
It illustrates the huge role of chance in everyday life. Violet is either the least or most lucky woman in history. Horrible people win the lottery. Innocent children develop fatal cancer.
Lady Luck can be a fickle and cruel mistress. Some people forget just how much luck they've enjoyed. I'll give you an example.
Your country of origin
Very early in my life, I was cognizant that living in the United States was a blessing. My grandparents reminded me of this fact frequently.
It's a game of chance, and I'd hit the lottery. Being born to a middle-class family in the US is objectively a good dice roll. I could be a child living in a slum where safety and proper nutrition aren't a guarantee.
And of all the dark times in the past that we could have been born, we are here in this present moment. There is some hindsight bias at work here — but still.
My travels abroad only reinforced this belief. I was in Belize and saw tiny, shanty huts with no air conditioning and small crop fields. It was hotter than any place I'd ever been. I couldn't fathom how difficult it might be.
The fact that you are here reading this article online suggests you probably had a decent place of origin, and an education of sorts.
I don't love comparing people's plights, but it's worth realizing that being poor in the US isn't the same as being poor in Sudan.
3. The gift of eye candy
As a younger man, I dated a woman who was entirely out of my league.
She was beautiful on the day she was born. Her mother was a model on the covers of magazines. Her father was a handsome photographer (you can guess how they met). Anywhere we went, people gawked at her. She got free tickets to events and invitations to parties from people she barely knew.
She had just been given free gift cards to a restaurant. We were in my car and about to leave.
I turned, smiled, and said to her, 'You do know this isn't normal, right?'
She said, 'What do you mean?'
'This,' I said, gesturing at the tickets, 'all these gifts and presents and invitations and people being excessively nice. Most people don't get that.'
She just stared at me and said, 'Um. Why are you being so negative?'
I sighed and realized I wasn't going to get my point across. There are few better gifts than hitting the genetic lottery and being beautiful. It isn't a point I was excited to make in this article. But it's the reality of the world we live in.
We like looking at beautiful people.
Even worse, we attribute the Halo Effect to them. It occurs when someone has one shining quality that enhances their other attributes.
As a simple example, we tend to assume a handsome, well-dressed person is smart and morally good ('one of the good guys'). Look at Disney movies. Villains tend to have scowling, less attractive faces.
George Lucas was well aware of this fact as he wrote Star Wars. He intentionally assigned Admiral Ackbar, the ugly fish general, as a good guy in the film:
The character was mocked by the crew for being such a hideous costume, but director Richard Marquand refused to change it.
He said, 'I think it's good to tell kids that good people aren't necessarily good-looking people and that bad people aren't necessarily ugly people.'
4. Your mind isn't a guarantee
They are smarter and better looking than you. They come from a great, accomplished family. They get better grades and are liked by everyone.
Nothing seems wrong with their life.
Then — something changes. They fall off the face of the earth. Their grades or job performance tank.
They are never the same again.
This is depression. I've seen it slam into people for seemingly no reason.
Although I've had my challenges, I was fortunate to be spared from things like major depression.
It's a damn shame that people totally underestimate mental illness, and the damage it can do. It isn't until someone is in the cross hairs of a terrible invisible illness that they really get it.
The takeaway
There's the old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, where Calvin is complaining about his life and his father says, 'Son, the world is unfair.'
And Calvin says, 'Yes, but why isn't it unfair in my favor?'
Don't let your grievances towards others overcome your sense of perspective. There are many who would gladly walk in your shoes. It's a fact I try to hold close to the vest.