Don’t Spit on Your Silver Plate

A commonly used expression in English is “To hand something to someone on a silver platter.” The expression means that the receiver has gained an object with ease, without the need for a lot of effort. For the longest time, this expression daunted me. It made me feel like everything I do was insignificant and of no worth. What is the point of reaching anywhere, when I reached it because of some sort of privilege I had thanks to my well-off background, when others around me who are not so well off can do much more. 
 
But, as is with any line of thought, I grew and developed the idea to become something slightly better. Before I tell you what that is though, let’s have a little chat about motivation. 

There’s no better way to say this than “Motivation sucks dirt.”  I hate motivation and I hate the content that caters towards it. This hatred has swelled up due to a whole lot of factors. Namely, the oversaturation of content and its redundancy. Over the past 2 years or so, every platform I use has been drowned in short videos filled with some rich billionaire flexing his lifestyle and talking about how you need to do this and that. This was acceptable at first. Over time, however, as more content poured in, and more loud music started popping up everywhere, the content quality degraded a lot. It became less of a message and more of a preaching cult that nobody really followed. The “wake up at 3 am, have a cold shower and be productive” cult. (Whatever being productive in this instance really means). This could really work for people who don’t feel motivated to live, let alone move anywhere. This makes sense for some cases, but it reaaaally does not fit for everyone, nor do I see it as good/necessary to have everyone preach that message. 

Here’s my issue with the idea. If you have perks, advantages, whatever you call them, and you didn’t struggle to earn them -- or at least you think you haven’t -- that doesn’t mean that your achievements are invalid. 
 
It's not that you’re either a privileged person with insignificant struggles or you’re someone who’s risen from the shambles to achieve the status of legends. That doesn’t have to be the case. You can be normal. Your privilege is a steppingstone that gives you a chance to move, it is a responsibility to take, but it doesn’t dictate the pace at which you walk. It only dictates the ceiling you can reach, and even then, the ceiling can rise or drop regardless of perks. Even if you’re privileged your struggles are your own. We each hold different thresholds and tolerances. Your struggle is significant.  

Do keep in mind, though, that it isn’t the only thing to define you. You don’t always have to struggle in life.  

In short, be thankful. Not everyone has what you do, and I promise that a lot of people wish to have what you have. But also, don’t look down on your struggles, you don’t have to fight dragons in the morning to do remarkable things. And remarkable things don’t always have to be slaying beasts. Appreciate the trivial things and for god’s sake, do not spit on your silver plate!

-Written in collaboration with a dear friend