#46 Grow up

Most of your life wasn’t your choice. Growing up is realizing that and taking responsibility for it

Jul 24, 2025

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This is a conversation I’ve had many times with friends.
We’re doing well, at least in material terms: good jobs, above-average salaries. And there’s this feeling that we’ve earned it.

We made smart choices. We worked hard. We sacrificed.

The narrative repeats almost every time I speak with someone who’s had some level of success.

But the same question always comes back to me: Did we really? Did we earn it more than others?

Bloodline

For most of history, people didn’t pretend success was earned.

Kings ruled by divine right. Peasants remained poor because that was their station in life. Inequality was accepted, even sanctified.

That changed with the Enlightenment. The idea that “all men are created equal” gave rise to something radical: Status should be based on merit, not birth. People should be judged by their effort, skill, and choices, not by their bloodline.

The idea was structural: it replaced monarchies with democracies, caste with social mobility, fatalism with ambition.

But it also planted the seed of a modern myth: success proves virtue. That we deserve what we have because we worked for it. And by extension, that others deserve less, because they didn’t.

The Illusion of Control

The reality is: your bloodline and other things you don’t control shape your life much more than your choices do.

You didn’t choose your birthplace, your parents, your genes, or your early environment. You didn’t choose your mental wiring, your natural level of discipline, or the desires that drive you. You didn’t choose your teachers, your role models, your first job offer, or the moment someone gave you a break.

Even your values and ambitions weren’t yours. They were shaped by culture, by family, by luck.

And of course, you didn’t choose your outcomes. You can grind and fail. You can coast and win.

This isn’t just philosophy. It’s what most religions teach: Buddhism calls for non-attachment, because you’re not in control. Christianity teaches grace, blessings you didn’t earn. Islam says everything unfolds by the will of God. The Stoics have amor fati: love your fate, especially the parts you never chose.

So what do you control?

Look, it’s hard to pin down exactly what we control and what we don’t. But let’s not overcomplicate it:

Luck has done a lot more for your life than you have

Redistribution of Luck

And here is where it gets interesting: If most of who we are isn’t really our choice, how should we think about society?

If someone commits a crime but was raised in chaos and shaped by trauma, do they need punishment or help?

If someone stays poor, should we judge their choices, or recognize that they never had the same ones?

If success is mostly luck, should the most fortunate keep more, or contribute more? Should taxes be seen as a penalty or as a redistribution of luck?

And if we actually believed that, what kind of systems would we build? What kind of education? What kind of justice? What kind of safety net?

I don’t know.

Grow Up

But I know this: grow up.

Stop telling yourself that your success is all thanks to you. It’s not.

Stop complaining. About how others don’t work as hard. About how others profit from the system. About taxes.

Stop acting like people are taking something from you. Stop pretending the system didn’t help you win, and that it doesn’t leave others behind.

Growing up means seeing clearly. Trading ego for empathy. Taking responsibility, not just for what you’ve done, but for what you’ve been given.

Stop feeling entitled. And start feeling grateful. Stop asking what you deserve. And start asking what you owe.

This is not a call to give up. It’s a call to grow up.

Thanks for reading 3x!

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