This isn't the only time in my life that I've wondered "why me?" in a good way. There are events almost every day of my life that cause me to stop, wonder, and be grateful for the life I have been given.
I think man's natural tendency is to justify what he has been given. "I've worked long and hard to be able to afford this house," one might say. What about those who've worked long and hard just to put bread on the table? "I sacrificed several years of my young life to go to college to gain an education that would provide me with a better job." What of those who sacrificed several years of their young lives to help their single mothers feed the rest of their families? In general, it's easy to say "I earned this." It's true that we may have earned it. We may have put forth the work and time necessary to achieve our goals, but what about the opportunities to do so in the first place?
These opportunities come from the "lotteries of life". Whether or not you believe in a "Supreme Architect" of this lottery is largely irrelevant (although in my opinion, such a belief helps us to better understand the big picture.) The lottery deals out many different opportunities and circumstances. One example could be birthplace. One child is born in the United States; another in Germany; another in Darfur, Sudan. How would the path of my life be different if I had been born in Sudan? It's a slippery slope to say I somehow earned the right to be born in the U.S. One changed outcome in the lottery of life and I'm not so different from anyone else on this planet after all.
I recently visited Dachau, the site of one of the first concentration camps of the Nazi regime. There is no way to accurately and succinctly describe everything that happened there. How is it that one group of men determined that others were below them based solely on race, based solely on one outcome in the lottery of life? It scares me to think of what judgments may be meted out based on the lot I've received, and conversely what judgments I may pass because of the lot another has received.
While I doubt (and hope) that most of us will not be involved in decisions similar to those made during the Holocaust, I'm convinced that we can improve our lives and the lives of those around us by consciously thinking about the lottery in our everyday decision making process. Doing so makes it easier to put ourselves in their shoes. Think of how different the world could be! What if members of the SS could have easily seen themselves being born to Jewish parents? Would they be so quick to persecute a Jewish boy?
When I think of all the opportunities I've been afforded in my life, I figure I owe it to society to dish out some opportunities of my own. The distribution of wealth across the globe really is rather disturbing. That should mean something for those of us who find ourselves on the higher end.
I'm not suggesting that we all embrace communism or give away all we have. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't seek to better our own lives and increase our level of comfort. What I am suggesting is that we consider the number of lotteries that, if changed, would put us in someone else's shoes. I like to think 1 or 2 would do the trick. Take my childhood and put it in a low-income, single-parent family. Or in a war zone. I may not be so different from the person I'm judging. Maybe my judgment is just. Maybe they really do deserve their misfortune because of their misdeeds, but I'm not convinced that's my judgment to make. It's hard for me to justify spending thousands of dollars to enjoy being a pilot, and then determine a beggar doesn't deserve my change. I may feel I've earned my full-tuition scholarship, but donating a portion of that to the Perpetual Education Fund seems a wiser investment.
Of course, money can be a touchy subject, and there are rarely universal guidelines that everyone can apply. This doctrine of life's lotteries transcends the realm of dollars and cents however. How would relationships change if we gave each other the benefit of the doubt? We're quick to judge others without understanding the big picture. Indeed, the full picture can never be understood by another; we can never know every detail of another's life that has brought him or her to this point. Judgments must be made, but we should make them conservatively. Imagine if the lotteries of life had dealt us a worse hand. Maybe our life is hard too, but there are enough bad things out there that we likely have not experienced them all. Divorce? Abuse? Poverty? Childhood trauma? Our relationships with people could be much stronger if we didn't jump to judge and gave them the benefit of the doubt.
I'm far from perfect in this area and many could describe me as a hypocrite if I didn't say that I need to work on this as much as anyone else. Writing about it forces me to think about it, and thinking about it is what forces me to change my habits. Publishing something also creates within us a sense of responsibility and accountability that would be lost if we simply discarded our thoughts. I can't foretell the outcomes of these lotteries of life, but I can resolve to treat those around me better, regardless of circumstance.
