CATHY HUANG

I will never understand why humans are put  in such a position of despair. I want to promise myself that before I die, I want to make at least a inkling of a contribution to bettering the life of at least one person stuck in extreme poverty. As a child, we are not consciously aware of the suffering that awaits us & we struggle to adjust to the idea of extreme hardship in our field of consciousness as we get older, no matter where our geographical proximity on earth is to be honest. But when a child is struggling to make a living and fend off bonded slavery and sex trafficking with both of their parents dead of AIDS, it makes you begin to wonder why some people are handed so many barriers throughout their lives. I will never understand the quality of life some people are handed no matter how hard they work or wish to escape from it. I don’t care what kind of excuses or reasoning people make for these people but in the end, it is unacceptable and unreasonable they are put into situation situations like this. 

What did I ever do to deserve a place to live in? What did I ever do to deserve living in a first world country? What did I ever do to deserve to expect to eat 3 meals a day? The truth is, we as the privileged population do not deserve any of it. And that rids me with guilt everyday. Life is too easy and I hate myself for forgetting to remember the places and people I’ve seen, the stories and documentaries I’ve digested over the course of my life. It kills me to remember their lives are nothing but a statistics, and even worse at this point in society, the large corporations are too far corrupted to turn back and realize what they are doing to the millions of slave labourers that live a meaningless existence from birth to death as a slave. How did we get to this stage, how did we get to such unconsciousness? 

I wish we all understood our commonality point and had a certain amount of compassion for each other- that we all want happiness and avoid suffering. That we are born into this world, and no matter what happens in the “between’ we end up the same at death. I wish we didn’t feel like we had to struggle for a certain amount of profit, of noteriety, or superiority, of status. That we are fine with being as good as the person next to us no matter what background they came from. I already know that I cannot die knowing I didn’t do a small part to change this somehow. I hate living in this bubble of privilege, this never-ending selfishness for more and more, I am disgusted at myself and those around me for the same amount of selfishness we have towards investing in our own lives when there are so many bigger issues. On top of that, we couldn’t be grateful. Sometimes existence just seems like a joke. 

After coming across a Buzzfeed video on a privilege quiz, I took it myself and found out, unsurprisingly me that I got a pretty high score. Despite my friends coming from all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds, I have been told an overwhelmingly number of times that I was privileged. This was always an uncomfortable term for me because it implied not working for anything, of being spoiled and having things handed on a silver platter. While  I did get handed many things in life, I never considered myself being privileged until I started travelling to third world countries, relating my friend's experiences and putting together everything I've known to this point. 

When one grows up in a bubble of what they are used to, it is unfathomable to them that someone else could not even think of life at their level because due to social inequality, people are shaped by different circumstances and environments. Nothing is so simple as the stereotypes I've heard growing up, such as assuming those working low income jobs just didn't bother getting an education. Or worse yet, when my friends blatantly wonder why an new immigrant coming to Canada under a temporary foreign worker visa cannot just upgrade to a higher paying job.  Despite our belief in meritocracy that people are able to realize the American dream by their sheer willpower, it rarely happens for those in cyclic poverty and disadvantaged positions in society.  For example, I was talking with a friend on the topic of privilege today because we took the same quiz, and she stated that she always assumed not taking family vacations was the "norm". It shocked me at the same time because it was the norm in my life, in fact I was always jealous at others for taking better vacations than me.  I guess taking this quiz of uncomfortable because I never realized my quality of life was considered to be privileged. People are always comparing to the upper status quo above them, but sometimes what they don't realize is the massive advantage they already have in society. 

To some third world country inhabitants, they cannot even tick ANY of these off.  That really puts things into perspective, because for as long as I can remember, the shocking gap of inequality in this world was always an incomprehensible thing for me. Every human being is giving one life, but birthright lottery puts us into different corners of the world, some have to endure a lifetime of inscrutable suffering while a meal someone eats in the first world is the yearly income of a person in bonded slavery.  It makes the world seem like unhinged chaos, the paradoxes between insufferable survival and greed. Also, one thing I realized is that success is not linear. Meritocracy is nonexistent essentially because everyone is raised at different levels from birth. Someone born at a level 5 could realize level 10 by the end of their lives, compared to someone born at level 1 who could only achieve level 5 at most. There are honestly so many factors that determine success, but still the poor get poorer and the rich get more rich. I think those with privilege should acknowledge it fully and realize it to put life in perspective, and most importantly humble themselves.