Perhaps one of the most overlooked privileges is not wealth itself, but having enough margin in your life to respond to reality. Over the last few years, we have become fluent in the language of privilege, speaking easily about financial privilege, pretty privilege, racial privilege, passport privilege, educational privilege and social privilege, and in doing so we have become increasingly aware that people do not all start from the same place and that some doors open more easily for some than for others. Yet there is one form of privilege that seems to receive far less attention, and that is the privilege of being able to do something with the information you have, not simply knowing, but acting, because the truth is that information alone changes very little. We like to imagine that if people only knew better, they would do better, and entire industries are built around this assumption, from self-help books and documentaries to podcasts, awareness campaigns, public health initiative...
The other evening, I went for an after-work coffee with two colleagues. Another day, I had dinner by myself — twice — in a nice restaurant. The kind of place that appears often in movies, books, and vlogs: soft lighting, carefully plated food, the suggestion of a life unfolding well. I remember sitting there and thinking: is this it? In stories, this is meant to feel like success. An evening out after work. A quiet dinner in a good restaurant. The kind of adult life that is supposed to arrive once you’ve done the right things. It’s framed as enviable, aspirational — a marker that you’ve made it into a certain version of adulthood. But nothing landed. The conversations were pleasant. The food was good. There was nothing wrong with the experience. And yet, all I could think about was how much I wanted to be in bed. There was no spark. No sense of arrival. Just a subdued awareness of time passing. I’ve been noticing this more often lately — not just with social rituals, but with mil...