Guilty of Privilege…

I am writing this from Hangzhou airport in China on a Thursday afternoon… Waiting for boarding to start for my flight to Hong Kong where I spend an evening and a few hours in office the next day before I fly again… midday back home to Singapore… A stop over that wasn’t planned but one that I got changed mid way during my visit to China…

And l feel privileged…

There was a time when flying was considered such a big thing for us… Visiting foreign countries for vacation was the vestige of the wealthy… At work people would and many still do yearn for a visit opportunity to ‘on-site’… And if one got the opportunity, they would fly over weekends, midnight’s and what not – just happy to have had the chance…

And now here I am – travelling so frequently that my passport has run out of pages, during mid week, during mid day… And being able to make stops on the fly…

I know that there even more privileged people who fly business all the time… Who fly even more… Who spend even more…

But somehow I still can see, feel and connect to people who don’t… For I came from there…

And I feel freaking lucky… And blessed…

During my visit to China, my colleagues here made me feel special all the time… Arranging for luxury cars for daily pick up and drop from the hotel… Ensuring that they accompany me for lunch so that I can get something vegetarian to eat… Giving me gifts on my return… Did they do it because I was a senior? Or just out of goodwill… Either ways, I wondered what makes me really deserve this…

A week or so back, Jainee had posted on social media how lucky she felt for coming back home and finding dinner ready and table set when she returned from work…

We know how much we pay our helper… Some people may think we pay more… Some think we treat her more beneficially than what maids are required to be treated…

And me and Jainee… We just feel happy to have someone whom we can trust to take care of kids and manage home… We probably could give a leg and a hand to rectify things that could possibly go wrong if we didn’t have that support… No wonder Jainee would like to thank them before me…

But the point is – sometimes we feel its such gross exploitation of people… Everyone deserves to be treated so much more equally… And there is so much unreasonable inequality…

And we are on the better side of the scale… And there is a nagging question that keeps lingering at the back of my mind… That do we truly deserve to be on this side of the equation?

I know everyone is not equal… there is difference in talent and capabilities… and the differentation is required to sustain growth and progress… the differentiation is actually the driver or goal of most pursuit by most people… Communism is the death knell for action… So am not at all veering towards it…

But the ones who are differentiated – like me today… Are we truly a different class… Or are we just enjoying the spoils of luck more than talent…

Maybe its the case that what I feel is so easy or obvious / natural to me… Is not that way for others… And I may have skills that are truly difficult – which I won’t or don’t realise because I possess them already…

Yet – I don’t know… I am sure that even the charity that well to do people do… The support that they provide… A big part of that comes out of the guilt of knowing that they don’t deserve all they have got… Or the unconcious admission of privilege, luck and blessing that they have been showered with… And that’s why they want to give back to the society…

Anyways… Maybe writing this out maybe my way of silencing my conscience… Recognizing and counting my blessings…

My flight is about to board, and they are boarding the most frequent flyers first, so got to go… See the privilege here as well!