Mindful Minion

I write a lot about the things I struggle with.

The ways I feel insecure. The things I don’t think I’m particularly good at. The ways I compare myself to other people. The ways I convince myself that I am mediocre, or that I could somehow be better, smarter, prettier, more accomplished.

But this time, I want to tell the truth.

Not the self-deprecating version. Not the humble version. Not the version where I immediately find something wrong with myself so I don’t sound arrogant.

Just the truth, as fairly and honestly as I can say it:

I am extremely blessed.

Just like everybody else, I’m not perfect. But there is a massive privilege in simply being me.

I was born with a certain temperament. I was naturally curious. I could learn, think deeply, make decisions, and stay disciplined. I seem to have been given a relatively high degree of emotional intelligence, too.

I can read a room. I can understand what someone is feeling even when they don’t say it directly. I can put complicated emotions into words. I can communicate difficult things.

I can think about emotions in layers.

Why am I feeling this? Why are they feeling that? What’s happening underneath the behavior? What am I assuming? What might they be afraid of?

That kind of thinking comes naturally to me.

I’m also decisive. I can be firm when I need to be. I know how to set boundaries. I don’t need everyone to like me. But I can also be gentle, considerate, and tactful.

I can look at myself honestly.

I’ve made mistakes. I’ve been selfish, angry, jealous, impulsive, and difficult.

But I can recognize when I’ve fucked up. I can feel remorse. I can apologize. I can admit when I’m wrong without needing to rewrite the story so that I’m the victim.

I can reflect, take responsibility, and try to do better.

The combination of those abilities is a fucking blessing.

Of course I have worked on myself.

Of course discipline requires practice. Character requires choices. Self-awareness requires effort.

But I increasingly understand that even the ability to practice, reflect, learn, communicate, and choose differently is itself a kind of privilege.

Some people were simply not given the same equipment.

And this realization has completely changed the way I see people who are very different from me.

There are people who are less articulate than I am. Less disciplined. More impulsive. More aggressive. More easily overwhelmed. Less socially intuitive. Less capable of understanding their own emotions or putting them into words.

Of course I can disagree with someone’s behaviors. I have boundaries. I can walk away. I can believe that certain choices are wrong.

But I can also understand that people are not given the same starting point.

What were they given to work with?

Maybe they don’t have the same emotional intelligence.

Maybe they don’t have the same ability to think through consequences.

Maybe they were never taught how to communicate.

Maybe they grew up in circumstances that trained them to survive rather than to be graceful.

Maybe their minds work differently.

Maybe they have been trying their entire lives, and their best still looks very different from my starting point.

And that thought makes me much more compassionate.

Because I don’t want to confuse “I would never choose that” with “How could anyone choose that?”

Those are not the same thing.

I may have had choices available to me that were never available to someone else in quite the same way.

I may have had the clarity to recognize a dangerous situation earlier.

I may have had the discipline to walk away.

I may have had the emotional vocabulary to explain what was wrong.

I may have had the confidence to say no.

I may have had the intelligence to see a pattern before it became a disaster.

Those are not small advantages.

As a matter of fact, some of them were already with me the moment I entered this world. I inherited a strong foundation from my parents, and I was fortunate that they also knew how to nurture it. A lot of who I am was shaped by the people who raised me.

My parents gave me an upbringing I now realize was incredibly valuable. They were educated, patient, loving, and supportive. They weren’t overly strict, but they also didn’t raise me to believe that the world owed me whatever I wanted.

Sometimes the answer was no.

And I learned to live with that.

They taught me to speak respectfully, to consider other people’s feelings, to treat people with dignity, and to understand that wanting something doesn’t automatically mean I deserve it.

They also taught me that a good life isn’t just about achievement. It is about character, generosity, and how you treat other people.

And somewhere along the way, I became a woman who cares deeply about manners, consideration, dignity, and self-respect.

There is another kind of privilege I have only recently begun to appreciate: freedom from irreversible entanglements.

People love to say, You can always start over.

But honestly, no.

Not always.

Some decisions permanently alter the shape of a life. Marriage. Children. Addiction. Crime. Gambling. Getting deeply entangled in a destructive relationship, a social circle, a financial situation, or a life you can no longer simply walk away from.

Whatever the intention behind those choices, once certain things happen, you cannot press F5 and return to the person you were before.

Life remembers.

And I feel incredibly fortunate that, at this point in my life, I still have an unusual amount of freedom.

I have not accumulated many of the attachments that can make a life difficult to untangle.

If I regret something, I can often still change it.

If I want to begin again, I can.

Tomorrow. Next month. Even right now.

I don’t have to become a completely different person. Sometimes I just need to stop, step away, and choose not to keep carrying something that no longer belongs in my life.

And there is something incredibly peaceful about knowing I can do that.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much of that freedom is also a privilege.

Maybe someone else has spent years building a life that is now extremely difficult to untangle. Maybe they have responsibilities they cannot simply walk away from, relationships they cannot erase, financial obligations they cannot ignore, or a history they cannot undo. Maybe they’re simply too far down a difficult path to turn around easily, sometimes with other people caught in the consequences.

I cannot look at that person and think, Why didn’t you just make better choices?

Because I have been extraordinarily lucky.

I happened to have the temperament, circumstances, opportunities, education, family, intelligence, and awareness that allowed me to make certain choices differently.

And perhaps what I call my discipline is, at least partly, the privilege of having been given the right conditions for that discipline to exist.

Maybe I’m not better. Maybe I was simply blessed differently through both nature and nurture.

And if I have been given a little more freedom, a little more clarity, a little more inner peace, then I want to treat that as a responsibility, not a trophy.

Because the more I recognize how much I have been given, the less entitled I feel to judge someone who was given less.

People are working with different hands of cards.

Some were given peace. Some were given chaos.

Some were given discipline. Some were given impulses they spend their entire lives fighting.

Some were taught how to understand themselves. Some had to spend adulthood figuring it out alone.

And some had to fight for things I barely had to think about.

So yes, I have strengths.

I’m intelligent in some ways. I’m disciplined. I’m emotionally perceptive. I know how to communicate. I know how to reflect on myself. I know how to walk away when something isn’t right.

But I’m not going to pretend I built all of that from nothing.

I got lucky. I got blessed.

Maybe some of it is effort.

Maybe some of it is character.

Maybe some of it is karma.

I don’t know.

But I know I have been given a lot.

And that is the privilege of being me.