The Starting Line Is Not Chosen

Before we make our first decision, a surprising amount has already been decided for us.

Country. Family. Language. Genes. Early health. Economic conditions. The expectations surrounding us. The schools available nearby. The accidents that happen before we are old enough to understand them.

None of this is earned.

It is inherited.

That fact makes me uncomfortable with stories that explain every outcome through character.

Success is often narrated backward. Once someone has achieved something, persistence, discipline, intelligence, and courage become visible. The conditions that made those qualities easier to use are less visible.

Failure is narrated in the same way. We see the result and imagine it reveals the person completely.

Rawls’s thought experiment of the veil of ignorance is useful because it asks us to imagine designing a society without knowing which position inside it will become ours. The exercise exposes how morally arbitrary many starting conditions are.

But recognizing luck creates another danger: turning circumstance into destiny.

The starting line is not chosen. The entire race is not therefore fixed.

People gain different degrees of agency over time. Some choices become possible. Others remain closed. Money, health, geography, law, family responsibilities, and chance continue to shape the available range.

That makes responsibility more complicated than either of the slogans we usually hear.

“Anyone can become anything” ignores structure.

“Everything is determined by circumstance” ignores agency.

Real lives contain both.

This perspective changes how I think about gratitude too. Some things I worked hard for. Some became possible because someone helped me. Some depended on being born in the right place at the right moment. Some happened almost accidentally.

Acknowledging that does not cheapen effort.

It makes the accounting more accurate.

Perhaps humility begins by separating two questions:

What did I do with what I was given?

And what was I given before I had done anything at all?