Chance

    I will give you a humbling piece of information that most of you will likely ignore.

    Everything that has ever happened to you, good or otherwise, was random chance.

    Unfortunately hubris and general lack of objectivity make people unaware of this, so they go about their lives either believing they themselves went wrong somewhere or sneering at people who can only afford a bike when they themselves drive an SUV.

    I'm getting really fucking tired of running into the latter.

    We actually have very little choice in our lives, if at all. Circumstances dictate just about everything that happens to us, and the only time we really have a choice is in how we deal with those circumstances. Even so, our choices are often limited by what or who we know, where we are, how old we are, and/or how much available resources we can expend on an option. Every living thing has to cope with this, it is what makes up life itself. Humans are no different.

    What separates us is our ability to demonstrate such arrogance that we often think we're above the natural order of life. We aren't.

    Which basically means that someone who is in a better position than someone else has nothing to gloat about. They're just there because of luck, and luck is a fickle thing that cannot be controlled. Autobiographies written by millionaires, in a comparison between them, revealed that a very small percentage of them attribute their fortunes to luck, but scientific studies have shown that, through testing the actions and reactions of different people in a set of predesigned circumstances, that humans often believe they have more control than they actually do. It begs the question of how lucky those authors really were. I think they were extremely lucky.

    This isn't intended to dishearten people who are actually trying to make something of their lives. Your own effort is a factor, even if it isn't the primary one.

    It is intended to tell those who are successful in any endeavor or just life itself, in no uncertain terms, to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down because they really aren't any better than the rest of us and their position is not a guarantee.

    It makes sense to be proud of your effort, but not your accomplishments. Your entire life boils down to chance and your only real measurement of self-worth is how well you deal with the circumstances.

    Considering my circumstances, I think I dealt with them pretty well. In some things, my effort was not small, nor was the priority of trying, and that's the best anyone can do.