The very end of my morning saying concludes with the declaration, “I am alive.” From there I think of 3 things to be grateful for, which is the last step of my daily morning routine. This morning, I stayed with that sentiment, because I feel with everything that’s been going on, everything I’ve been thinking about, everything I’ve been writing about with both this blog and my upcoming book… it’s important for us to remember something as simple as that. We’re alive. We have life. We could be dead. We could never have been born. People are suffering right now, people’s spirits are disturbed and violated… but we are alive. We must remember to appreciate this greatest of gifts.

Beyond that, I want to contribute to the conversation about privilege. I am a tall, white, able-bodied, mesomorphic, blonde haired, blue eyed, heterosexual male born into a middle class family in Silicon Valley, California, in the United States. None of these things were earned. That’s privilege, and unfortunately in today’s world, it’s privilege determined entirely at birth. Substitute ‘billionaire’ for ‘middle class’ and you would have a person handed every possible advantage for today’s institutionalized biases. Lucky me, I won the birth lottery. What am I do with it?

I try to make the most of this privilege by breaking down the social constructs that create it. I have lived in 3 very different countries on 3 very different continents. I’ve also traveled extensively around the world. These experiences taught me a lot and exposed me to much of the incredible diversity amongst the human race. This is not an accomplishment or something to brag about, but simply facts to explain my situation, my worldview, the context in which I’m forming opinions. Because the most powerful and plain lesson I’ve learned from my life experiences so far is that we are more similar than we are different. Every single person on this planet wants the same things for themselves and their loved ones. They want to be happy healthy and wealthy. I try to live a life that promotes fairness and kindness, and I encourage others to do the same.

Once we recognize that we all live on the same rock, breathe the same air, eat food and drink water to acquire energy, and sleep to restore, we see that these other “differences" are minute and meaningless. Some people are short, some are tall. Some have darker skin, some have lighter skin. Hair color can vary. Many people are born poor. Some are born in places that give them great opportunities to live a great life, while many others are dealt much worse hands.

Regardless of all of these circumstances, we have the intellect, the technology, and the will to create a new set of conditions for this world. Conditions that equalize opportunity as perfectly as possible, so that people’s lives are determined by empathy, hard work, courage, perseverance, intelligence, and a little bit of serendipity. A world in which prejudice and bigotry are not tolerated. A world centered around character, in which success is earned. A world in which we more effectively conquer new diseases like the coronavirus. A world in which we cooperate globally and congenially to address, slow, prevent, and reverse a planetary peril like climate change.

As I’ve written the past few days, we’re getting there. Just think of life in 1800. We’re working through all these things, and I envision a world in a not-too-far-off future in which much of this is possible, even normal. It’s going to take a lot to make it happen. Can we do it? Can we do it with awareness and compassion and gratitude and love? Yes we can. We can change the world. Let’s go.