When you visit coffee shops, when you pick an outfit, or when you pick a favorite color, there’s always a choice. It’s nice to have control over things, to have options. It makes you feel like you’re in authority of your life, and when you make bigger choices, you can choose the right one.
However, the bigger choices don’t always work in our favor.
Since I’ve grown, I have a better understanding of what it’s like to have the privilege to choose—the privilege of having a choice. To be fair, I am completely capable of making my own choices. But how many of those choices are really what I want?
Growing up, decisions were often made for me; what I was gonna wear, what I was gonna eat, even when I should take a bath—someone else was in charge. But now I’ve grown up, I am capable to make sound decisions.
They say life is a matter of choosing—your choice would determine your success. So, when it came time for school applications, I thought the choice would be mine. This was my choice, yes, but it wasn’t really mine. But it wasn’t my parents’ either; my parents—they’re doing their very best to support me, raise me, and give me an education that is of quality. The obvious choice for me was to have education out of town. The city was a promising path for me. I wouldn’t care about the amount of stress being handed to me nor would I care about the traffic. Tiring, true. But at least I was living the dream, my dream. There’s something in the city I wish I could experience. But just like the song goes, life is emotionally abusive. I ended up here, a college a few minutes away from our house. Of course education in the province can level with the city, but it isn’t just that. As much as academics matter to me, I can’t help but want the same experience as my friends; how much they’re having fun, how much they’re enjoying.
It never occurred to me how much I envy people who have the privilege of getting everything they want. I never found myself as someone envious. I was always taught to be grateful, but how could I? My parents do everything for me, they work hard.
But why does life never favor us?
Why do we not have the money to choose? I sit as I watch people who are products of nepotism be more successful than those who are actually working hard. It sickens me that those who have the power to actually choose are the ones most ungrateful. They have everything and yet they want more. Of course there are different struggles for everyone, but I just wish their opportunities were mine. Am I too self-absorbed to think that I deserve whatever they have? I admit that I, myself, am privileged. I have options, and I can still choose. But even with those choices, the big decisions, it was never really up to me.
It was up to the world. It was up to the state. It was up to those who have power.
The choices were made for me, for us. We are forced to accept our “fate” because those above us make us feel as if we haven’t tried hard enough. The truth is, they determine our lives. They will make us work, beat us up to exhaustion, and somehow if our dreams aren’t met, it is still our fault.
To some, making a choice is merely a sacrifice—those who work three jobs to support their family, or those who choose to have a job instead of an education because of the economic climate. So, is it really one?
I am lucky enough I have the privilege to even write this piece. I am lucky enough I have an education. I am lucky enough I am educated. I wish one day, the people deserving of a choice are actually given one. And I wish it’d be up to them.