The more privileged you are, the less likely you're able to truly comprehend your own privilege

Ever notice how the people who insist they "worked for everything they have" often started on third base?

I remember sitting in a coffee shop in Saigon a few years back, overhearing a conversation between two expats. One was complaining about how the locals "just don't have the same work ethic" while sipping his $6 latte in a country where that's more than many people make in a day.

The irony was completely lost on him.

That moment stuck with me because I recognized something uncomfortable in it. Something I'd seen in myself before moving to Southeast Asia. Growing up in Melbourne, I thought I understood struggle because my family was working-class. We weren't rich. My parents worked hard. I took a warehouse job shifting TVs to make ends meet.

But living between Vietnam and Singapore has taught me something profound about privilege that I couldn't see when I was surrounded by it. The more advantages you have, the harder it becomes to recognize them as advantages at all.

The invisibility of our own advantages

Think about fish not knowing they're in water. When something surrounds you completely, you stop noticing it exists.

Privilege works the same way. When you've always had clean drinking water from the tap, you don't think about it as a luxury. When you've always had access to education, you assume everyone who doesn't succeed simply didn't try hard enough.

I used to believe my university degree was purely the result of my own effort. Sure, I studied hard. But I also had parents who valued education, a stable home to study in, and enough food that I never had to worry about hunger distracting me from my books.

Living in Vietnam has shown me families where brilliant kids drop out of school at 14 to work because their family needs the income. Not because they lack ambition. Not because they don't value education. But because survival comes first.

The bootstrap myth

We love stories about people who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They make us feel good about the world being fair and merit-based.

But here's what we miss: not everyone even has boots.

When I wrote my book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego, I explored how Buddhist philosophy teaches us about interconnectedness. Nothing exists in isolation. Every success story is built on a foundation of countless factors, most of which we had no control over.

Your success isn't just about your hard work. It's also about the country you were born in, the color of your skin, your gender, your health, your family's economic status, the quality of schools in your area, and a thousand other variables you never chose.

The more of these advantages align in your favor, the more "normal" they seem. You start believing everyone has the same starting line.

Why success makes us blind

There's a psychological phenomenon called the fundamental attribution error. We tend to attribute our own successes to internal factors (our talent, our effort) while attributing our failures to external factors (bad luck, unfair circumstances).

With other people, we flip it. Their failures? Must be personal shortcomings. Their successes? They got lucky.

The more successful you become, the more you reinforce the belief that you earned it all yourself. Each achievement adds another layer of confirmation bias. You worked hard and succeeded, therefore hard work must be the primary factor in success.

But what about all the people who worked just as hard and didn't make it?

Living in Saigon, I've met street vendors who wake up at 4 AM and work until midnight, seven days a week. They work harder than I ever have. The difference between us isn't effort. It's opportunity.

The comfort of not knowing

Here's an uncomfortable truth: recognizing your privilege feels terrible.

It means admitting that your achievements aren't entirely your own. It means acknowledging that the world isn't fair. It means sitting with the discomfort of having advantages others don't.

So we create stories to avoid this discomfort. We focus on the obstacles we did face (and everyone faces some) while minimizing the advantages we had. We point to examples of people who succeeded despite tremendous disadvantages as proof that anyone can make it.

But using exceptional cases to justify systemic inequalities is like using lottery winners to prove that buying tickets is a solid retirement plan.

Breaking through the bubble

How do you see water when you're a fish? You have to experience air.

Moving to Southeast Asia was my experience of air. Suddenly, advantages I'd never noticed became visible. The power of my passport. The economic value of being a native English speaker. The doors that opened simply because of where I came from.

You don't have to move across the world to gain this perspective, though. You can actively seek out stories and experiences outside your bubble. Read books by authors from different backgrounds. Travel if you can, but travel to learn, not to confirm what you already believe.

Most importantly, when someone from a less privileged background shares their experience, resist the urge to immediately counter with your own struggles. Just listen. Sit with the discomfort of not relating.

The ego problem

Buddhism teaches that suffering comes from attachment, particularly attachment to the ego. The idea that we're self-made, that we've earned everything through our own merit, is perhaps the ultimate ego attachment.

In my book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego, I explore how letting go of ego doesn't diminish us. It connects us more deeply to others and to reality itself.

Acknowledging privilege isn't about self-flagellation or guilt. It's about seeing clearly. It's about understanding that your story is part of a larger tapestry, not a solo performance.

What do we do with this knowledge?

Recognizing privilege isn't meant to paralyze you with guilt. Guilt without action is just self-indulgence.

Instead, use this awareness to develop genuine empathy. Stop judging others' struggles through the lens of your own advantages. Support policies and practices that level the playing field, even if they don't directly benefit you.

Share your advantages. If you had great mentors, become one. If you had access to education, help others access it. If you have a network, make introductions.

Most importantly, get comfortable with discomfort. The discomfort of acknowledging unfair advantages. The discomfort of not being entirely self-made. The discomfort of living in an unfair world.

Because that discomfort is where real growth happens.

Final words

The paradox of privilege is that those who have the most of it are often the least equipped to see it. We're all fish swimming in our own water, unable to see what surrounds us.

But once you start to see it, you can't unsee it. Every success becomes more complex. Every failure becomes more understandable. Every person's story becomes more nuanced.

This isn't about diminishing anyone's hard work or achievements. You can work incredibly hard and have privilege. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

It's about developing the humility to recognize that our lives are shaped by forces beyond our control, and the wisdom to use whatever advantages we have to make things a little more fair for everyone else.

Because the ultimate privilege might just be the ability to help others overcome the disadvantages we never had to face.