resentment

I don’t really have any personal resolutions this year except:

I want to become less resentful of people that have more resources than me.

I listen to How I Made This, a great podcast about entrepreneurs, and every episode ends with the question, “How much of your success do you attribute to hard work, and how much do you attribute to luck?”

Whenever the guest says “all of it to my hard work” my teeth clench, especially since many of the guests have stuff like a rich relative that invested, or connections from an Ivy League school.

But really, what does any of this have to do with me? I do think that these meritocratic views are damaging because they generate a lack of empathy for people that are underprivileged; but in reality, that’s not me. So while I think picking apart the view that our culture is meritocratic is worth doing, I don’t think it has much connection to my own situation. I’ve been fortunate in many ways.

Spending energy on this kind of resentment for me individually is not worth the expenditure.