Take One Step Forward

I wear Ralph Lauren every day. My parents send me money each month. I don't pay my own rent.

I was born into privilege.

Not the kind you see in movies—no mansion, no trust fund, no inheritance waiting. But privilege nonetheless. The privilege of education. The privilege of choice. The privilege of being able to leave when staying became suffocating.

Some people call it luck. I call it responsibility.

The Video That Changed Everything

I was 17 when I first watched the "Privilege Walk" video on YouTube.

I had just switched to online school. A decision that would eventually lead to dropping out entirely. I was alone in my room, scrolling aimlessly, when the algorithm suggested it.

The premise was simple: a group of people stand in a line. A facilitator asks questions:

"Take one step forward if both of your parents went to university."

"Take one step back if you've ever skipped a meal because you couldn't afford food."

"Take one step forward if you've never had to worry about your phone being shut off."

By the end, the line had fractured. Some stood far ahead. Others far behind.

I watched it twice. Then a third time.

And I couldn't stop thinking: Where would I be standing?

The Discomfort of Acknowledgment

The answer was uncomfortable.

I would be near the front. Not at the very front. There are always people with more. But ahead. Significantly ahead.

I thought about the randomness of it all:

If I had been born in a different country.

If my parents had been poor.

If I had been born during a war.

If I had been born in Japan 80 years ago—the same country, but an entirely different life.

None of these things were my choice. They were accidents of birth.

Nationality. Physical ability. Family wealth. The era you're born into.

We all inherit some form of privilege. The question is: What do we do with it?

The Shame I Felt

At 18, I felt ashamed of my privilege.

Not guilty. Shame is different. Guilt says "I did something wrong." Shame says "I am something wrong."

I saw my peers struggling. Working multiple jobs to afford university, supporting their families, navigating systems that weren't designed for them. And then I saw others like me. People who had never worked, never struggled, never had to choose between food and rent.

At the end they ended up in the same classrooms. But they didn't walk the same path to get there.

And I couldn't reconcile that.

So I left.

At 18, I moved out. I rejected my parents' financial support. I spent two years trying to strip away every advantage I had been given, as if I could somehow earn my place retroactively.

I thought that if I suffered enough, I could justify my existence. That if I struggled, I would deserve what I had.

But I was wrong.

What Michael Sandel Taught Me

It wasn't until I read Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit that I began to understand what I had been doing wrong.

Sandel argues that meritocracy—the idea that success is purely the result of talent and effort—is a lie. And worse, it's a dangerous lie.

Here's why:

1. Talent is luck.

The abilities you're born with—intelligence, physical strength, creativity—are not your doing. They're genetic accidents. You didn't earn your IQ any more than you earned your height.

As Sandel writes:

"The meritocratic ideal is not a remedy for inequality; it is a justification for it."

If we believe that success is purely earned, then we also believe that failure is purely deserved. And that's cruel.

2. Meritocracy breeds arrogance.

When people succeed, they attribute it to their own hard work. They forget the systems, privileges, and luck that made their success possible.

This leads to what Sandel calls "the tyranny of merit"—the belief that the successful deserve their success, and the unsuccessful deserve their failure.

This is how societies fracture. This is how elites become disconnected from everyone else. This is how Brexit happens. This is how Trump happens.

Because when the winners believe they won purely through effort, they look down on the losers. And the losers, tired of being told they didn't work hard enough, revolt.

3. Opportunity is not enough.

Meritocracy promises that if we equalize opportunity, then inequality becomes fair. But this ignores a fundamental problem:

People have different abilities.

Even if two people have the same opportunities, one might be smarter, stronger, or more driven. And that difference—through no fault of either person—will lead to unequal outcomes.

Sandel asks: Should the less talented be condemned to lives of less dignity?

The answer, if we believe in human worth, must be no.

What I Realized

Reading Sandel, I understood my mistake.

I had been ashamed of my privilege because I thought it made my achievements illegitimate. But shame was the wrong response.

Privilege is not guilt. It's responsibility.

Here's what I mean:

Privilege is not something to hide.

Pretending you don't have advantages doesn't help anyone. In fact, it makes things worse—because it perpetuates the myth that success is purely earned.

Privilege is not something to apologize for.

You didn't choose to be born into your circumstances. And self-flagellation doesn't change the system. It's performative, not productive.

Privilege is something to acknowledge and leverage.

The question is not "Do I deserve what I have?" The question is "What am I going to do with it?"

The Student Who Goes Silent

I once read a blog post by a professor who teaches counseling students in the United States. She wrote about a pattern she noticed:

"Whenever I bring up privilege in class, there's always at least one student who goes silent. They look ashamed. As if having privilege makes them a bad person.

So I tell them: Privilege is not a bad thing. It's a form of power. And power is neutral—what matters is how you use it.

Having privilege doesn't diminish your achievements. You still worked hard. You still earned your place here.

But it does mean that others had to work harder. They had to overcome more obstacles. And acknowledging that doesn't take anything away from you—it just means you understand the full picture."

That resonated with me.

Because she's right. Privilege is not something to be ashamed of. It's something to be aware of.

The People Who Refuse to See

But here's the problem: not everyone acknowledges their privilege.

Some people succeed and genuinely believe it was purely their own doing. They ignore the systems that supported them—the safety nets, the networks, the head starts.

These are the people Sandel warns about. The people who look at struggling workers and think, "They should have worked harder." The people who support policies that punish the poor because they believe poverty is a moral failing.

This attitude is not just wrong—it's dangerous.

Because when the successful believe they deserve everything, and the unsuccessful deserve nothing, societies collapse. Trust erodes. Resentment builds. And eventually, people revolt.

We see this everywhere:

Political polarization in the U.S.

Brexit in the U.K.

The rise of populism across Europe.

These are not random events. They are the consequences of decades of meritocratic arrogance.

What Now?

So what should we do?

1. Acknowledge your privilege.

Not with shame, but with honesty. Understand that your success is not entirely your own. You had help—whether you asked for it or not.

2. Be humble.

Even if you worked hard, others worked harder and got less. That's not fair. And pretending otherwise is self-delusion.

3. Don't waste it.

Privilege is power. Use it well. Build something. Help someone. Don't squander what you were given.

4. Don't strip it away out of guilt.

I tried this. I spent two years rejecting every advantage I had, thinking it would make me "deserve" my life more.

It didn't. It just made me miserable.

Because the problem isn't that you have privilege. The problem is when you pretend you don't.

One Step Forward

I still wear Ralph Lauren. My parents still help me. I still live in London, in a flat I don't pay for.

But now I see it differently.

This isn't something to be ashamed of. It's something to be responsible for.

I didn't choose to be born into privilege. But I can choose what I do with it.

I can keep learning. Keep questioning. Keep building. Keep trying to become someone worthy of what I was given.

Not because I owe anyone. But because wasting privilege is worse than having it.

So yes, I'm starting ahead of the line.

But the question isn't where you start.

It's whether you take a step forward.

And I will.

Every day.