What a Privilege!

Recently, through a series of conversations, I’ve been noticing just how “privileged” I am. I put that in quotation marks since the concept of privilege is relative. 

My boss was amazed when I expressed how much I would LOVE to have a home-cooked meal every day, which is her lived experience and thinks nothing of it. I live alone and work long hours, so I cannot and do not want to come home and cook every day. My boss, on the other hand, has a domestic helper, so she comes home to a cooked meal daily. What a privilege.

A friend of mine had a birthday celebration and shared her thoughts on the ebbs and flows of adulthood, expressing frustration about not yet having a car. I laughed and said, “A car is not a big deal, you have so much going for you already in your life.” I said that because she’s married and has a beautiful life, so what if she doesn’t have a car? She scoffed and pointed out that I’m only saying that now that I have a car that I’m using full-time. Eish, what a privilege.

I was telling another friend what an amazing life he has because he often travels globally and appears to have a wonderful life in the eyes of the rest of us. He laughed and humbly admitted that this “globe-trotter” life isn’t as glamorous as it seems. It’s filled with long and exhausting hours of flying and connecting, and it can be quite lonely at times. But for me, as someone who hasn’t experienced any of that, I would be thrilled to be tired from flying halfway around the world. Heck, what a privilege.

And then many of my married friends and associates are always chastising me for yearning for marriage. “Don’t rush to get married, enjoy your singleness, live your best life...blah blah fishpaste.” Do you know how lonely it is to come back to an empty apartment every day after work? Don’t get me started on the Sunday blues. Meanwhile, married people have a built-in friend—someone to vent to, watch TV shows and laugh with, or just share the joys of the day over a cup of tea. Simple, yet such a privilege.

I’m basically just pointing out that all of us enjoy some level of privilege, whether we see it or not. The life we take for granted, someone else would die to have. Pun intended. 

I complain about how I’d love to have a home-cooked meal, and one of my neighbours might be seeing the delivery guys bringing me food often and think how privileged I am to be able to buy food all the time. Okay, I think I’ve made my point abundantly clear. We all have something that someone else wants. Privilege is not some supremacy thing; as long as you have breath in your lungs, you’ve got something to be grateful for, something that makes your life beautiful and worth living. What a privilege!