‘Self Made’ Doesn’t Mean You Started From Nothing
No one really starts from nothing, we are all lucky and privileged in some way
The term ‘self made’ in its rawest form is an illusion. Nobody comes straight from nothing. Your parents had enough money to facilitate giving birth to you in a hospital, in safe condition. There’s always going to be a level you were fortunate enough to begin life on, that someone else is wishing for.
Headlining being ‘self made’ in our journey through life can be so full of arrogance, it embeds the idea that you did it all by your own genius. The reality is no one navigates this world alone, there’s always a bunch of people, be it your parents, a parent, a step parent, the nurse in that orphanage home that made sure you didn’t die of measles.
At different stages of our lives, we were lucky to be in certain places where our lives had some form of guarantee, to the point where we can read this story right now, and see the sun rise beautifully tomorrow. No matter how ungrateful we may be, someone’s shoulder once held our heads cozy and kept it from being crushed by rocks.
Inherited money also has to be sustained, and keeping this money for many generations still takes a lot of hardwork, dedication and some form of self determination.
Being self made to me means being self determined, and not necessarily being able to say ‘I did it all by myself’. Everybody should strive for independence and we all need to resist the urge for entitlement to other people’s success, but dragging someone else simply because they had more ‘luck’ is not the healthiest way.
We can all learn from each other’s journey. Supporting the achievements of others, celebrating their accolades and giving props to those who mentored us along the way takes some degree of courage and this courage is what fosters self determination.
You don’t need to start from nothing to be self made and determined. Acknowledging others can never make you any less self determined, and realizing that everyone has the ability to express self determination and recreate themselves at any level is key. No one can be too privileged not to have and create a legacy for themselves.
Society keeps spreading hate towards people from opulent families, they try to strip away any sign of individuality from them, and relegate these people to nothing but projections of the families they were born into.
A lot of us keep propagating a perspective of the rich being depressed, just to make ourselves feel better that no one can truly have it all. We keep labeling the upper class as a group of individuals that may never find happiness, but deep down we secretly wish to join them. We label them, but grind all day and night to leave our ‘happiness’ for their unhappiness.
Nobody gets to choose which family, country, continent, town, neighbourhood they’ll be born into, so why do we keep downplaying the efforts and wins of people we think are more privileged than we are.
If it was by only inheriting wealth and being born into privilege, then about 70% of wealthy families won’t lose their wealth by the second generation, and 90% by the following generation. There is more behind the curtains, that we never see on magazine covers.
When Kylie Jenner made it to the cover of Forbes as a self made billionaire, everyone was quick to judge her as not deserving of that title, they used her Kardashian name to strip her of every personal wins she worked for in her journey.
One thing many of her critics fail to realize is that irrespective of her family name, popularity, reality show and business empire, becoming a billionaire is never easy. It takes guts and execution of your dreams and visions against all odds.
Not many of us can multiply wealth, and if so, definitely not in that magnitude. Before we downplay someone’s milestone, we should also ensure we ask ourselves this question:
‘Would I be able to match this milestone, if I was handed the exact same privilege?’
Don’t forget that so many people who claim to be at the unlucky side of life, still fail to multiply even the little they have, some even loose it all. Many individuals way more privileged than Kylie have squandered all their wealth.
As far as I’m concerned, Kylie and so many influential people just like her, young and old, are all strong ‘self made’ individuals, people we can all admire and learn so much from, instead of relentlessly criticizing.
The title ‘self made’ is too narrow to quantify people’s strife to greatness, we all have some advantage over others due to our family or parents hardwork or suffering. This doesn’t disqualify us from being called ‘self made’ because our hardships can never be equal.
Should parents stop working hard to provide for their children just so people can give them credit for being ‘self made’?
I saw this comment on YouTube while watching a video on ‘10 youngest billionaires in the world’ :
Your parents had enough money to provide you a conducive sanitary living environment? Enough money to feed you and give you enough time for proper development? Enough money to buy a motorcycle to drive you to school? Enough connection to ask for a loan to pay for your college education so that you can be smart enough to become a billionaire? You see, the term ‘self-made’, concluded literally, is simply dumb.
What makes someone deserve the title is their choice, their perseverance, and hard work with obviously their unique combinations of luck to achieve billionaire status. It is simply a term to distinguish those immediately receiving billion dollars of inheritance and those who managed to expand and grow their modals into billions.
Some people go as far as saying you must have been homeless to be qualified as self made, but fail to realize that impact, growth, innovation and sustainability is what tells the ‘Entrepreneurship Tale’, not necessarily the struggle and hardship you’ve gone through. In the end, before you can tell that story of your life that people will want to listen to, you have to make some sort of impact.
If it were by hardship, then everybody suffering on the streets should be put on the cover of Forbes. Winning doesn’t mean suffering, it means using your knowledge to get results.
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