Review of my privileges: Why reminds me that I am not as smart as I think

Review of my privileges: Why reminds me that I am not as smart as I think

Privileges are so often invisible to those who have them. It gives us security and caresses our ego and claims to achieve achievements that are not quite ours

I never felt poor until I went to the university. I was one of eight siblings who grew up in a town hall of Tower Hamlet (vouchers for my school uniform, free school meals), but I never had the feeling that my family was poor until I got to the university.

There my group of Bengal girls changed like me to those whose families owned second cars, second cars and even flourishing companies-no international conglomerates like in Oxbridge, but still impressive: a diamond business in West London, a doctor surgery in Surrey, a business audit company in Redbridge.

"Privileges are so often invisible to those who have it.

years later I told a friend that I wished that my parents could have achieved more; acquired a fraction of what these other parents had.

My girlfriend, honest and wise, did not draw any blows. She asked me how I could dare to say something like that when my parents had moved across continents into a country in which they did not speak the language, no family or friends, no capital, no jobs, no perspectives and never felt hungry or cold or sick, the characteristics of true poverty.

She reminded me of all the things I had learned from my trip to Bangladesh when I was 13. If my parents weren't immigrated to Great Britain, I would live in a village in Bangladesh, tied up by decisions that others made for me.

I was always reminded of this on our travels through the Pacific and South America. The reason why I (and most likely you) have reached something is not mainly due to the innate intelligence, but because of the circumstances; A privilege that grants us the land of our birth or the wealth of our families.

I met people on the way who could very much lead multinational companies if they were born elsewhere. There was Werry from the Port Resolution Yacht Club on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, Josie, the receptionist at the Poseidon Dive Center in Colombian Taanga, and Amirico, a leader at the Salkantay trekking in Peru. All of these people had an intelligence and skills that shone as brightly as every graduate or any manager that I met at home.

Maybe it is presumptuous to assume that Josie and her peers want to live different. Werry spends many days with fish, which reminds me of the old parable of the Mexican fisherman, who spends his days playing with his children, holding his wife Siesta, a little to fish, drink wine and play guitar with his friends.

An American businessman encounters the small business of the fisherman and asks why he no longer spends time with fishing, buys more boats and expands his company. With the high quality of his fish, he can become a multinational group within 20 years, says the American.

"What then?" Asks the fisherman. "Then," says the American, "you would announce a IPO and sell your company shares to the public.

It is an impressive story that says a lot for simple life, but the truth is that the vast majority of people could not choose any other life, even if they wanted it. Josie will most likely never get a higher education, will never get the chance to fully exploit her intelligence, will never have the opportunity to start a startup that could change the world - but I have done it and will never try to forget that again.

A friend in San Francisco once told me that the smartest people in the world go to Silicon Valley. That is not true at all. The smartest people in the world who were born with a very specific privilege go to Silicon Valley. The smartest people in the world most likely sit in Silicon Valley, in New York and in London and plow the fields of Cambodia, build coffee in Ethiopia and manage machines in India.

privileges are invisible to those who have them so often. It gives us security and caresses our ego and claims to achieve achievements that are not quite ours.

Travel is the most effective way I have found to bring privileges to light, to give them form and tangible form, to force us to accept a simple truth: that you and I are much more lucky than we are wise.

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