[Luck, dollars, darts, lottery, chance, target, money, accuracy, dexterity, game, business, strategy, entrepreneurship, risk, excitement, intrigue, one hundred dollars, dedication, purpose, casino, betting, indoor games and sports, games, recreation. Credit to Pxhere]

Many people don't realize this, but anyone who was born into economic wealth and received a good education is a person who won the lottery at birth.

In other words, if you have received a good English language education, it means that you have won the lottery.

You have been educated to understand the universal language, English. You have the technology necessary to read this online, and you have enough time to do so.

All of these advantages that you possess and have never acknowledged before surprisingly put you in the top quartile of the human population.

Based on the results of a study held by the Equality of Opportunity Project, a 26-year-old born in the bottom quintile of the social hierarchy has less than a 10 percent chance of reaching the top quintile.

Yet, that number increases to over 35 percent for those born in that quintile.

Therefore, if a child is born rich, there is a very high likelihood that child will remain wealthy as he or she will one day inherit the family assets.

On the other hand, a child from a family with insolvent assets will start life with an abundance of financial debts or, if lucky, nothing.

Statistically, while the top 1 percent of U.S. households control about 33 percent of all the wealth in the country, the bottom 10 percent control -0.2 percent of the wealth, meaning that they have negative assets to start with.

This makes it clear that children such as the ancestors of enslaved African-Аmericans would always face near-insurmountable obstacles to even put food on the table.

At the same time, those who had already hit the birth lottery can get a head start and a clear pathway to prosperity. 

This viewpoint makes it clear that we are all products of our parents' wealth.

If I had been born as an indentured servant in Pakistan, an orphan in India, or a child of a convict, it is likely that I would never have been able to escape financial or social poverty.

I genuinely respect and congratulate the people who are the exceptions, those who climbed the social ladder despite having a rough start.

Yet, the vast majority of us, who were born into financially prosperous households, got lucky, plain and simple. 

Some of you may find it disappointing at first to realize how helpless we are as humans to choose where we start in life.

Fairytales have told us, as children, that we have total control over our way of life, but in reality, as Raoul Martinez said, "Our starting point in life is one of complete dependence on forces—genetic and environmental—that we don't control.

And these forces can shape us into many things … The people we become, the lives we lead, the beliefs and values that we learn to hold, owe much to the lottery of our birth."

Although we need to keep this fact in mind, we don’t need to feel proud of  being lucky or feel down when we see the world's true colors.

We should be grateful and use our financial fortune to ensure that at least a small number of unlucky children receive equal opportunity to enjoy the prosperous life they deserve. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rachel Lee

Grade 9

Chadwick International

 

 

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