There is a book, which I haven’t read, called Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. A miniseries on Hulu, which I haven’t watched, is based on the book. It deals with a lot of heavy topics — race, class, and people from different circumstances, although I cannot reasonably speak to the contents of either the book or the series beyond that basic premise.

In the Hulu adaptation, the character Mia Warren, played by Kerry Washington, is a young black mother who the character Elena Richardson, played by Reese Witherspoon, shows kindness to her without knowing her background. The plot spins out from there as the two get to know each other. At some point in the series, Mia confronts Elena with a line that wasn’t in the original novel but still sums things up pretty well:

You didn’t make good choices, you had good choices.

Somehow, this quote came to me — through a friend who found it on social media I believe, but I may have seen it before in my scrolling. Still, it perfectly encapsulates the privilege I experienced growing up.

I am not saying I had the easiest of lives. The basic rundown is that when I was 12, I became suicidally depressed as my bipolar disorder manifested, and I struggled to make friends and get through school. Still, I persevered, and through a lot of hard work and effort, I graduated college and made a career for myself.

It is easy to leave it at that — an inspirational story of a kid facing adversity pulling himself up by his bootstraps to succeed against all odds. However, that characterization is very, very wrong and ignores all manner of advantages I had that allowed me to succeed.

My parents were solidly middle-class when I was in middle school, and my father would continue to grow his career and would land us in the upper-middle class by the time I made it to college. We already lived in one of the best upper-middle-class neighborhoods in my city, my parents having bought the best house they could afford there for the stellar school district. Additionally, my parents were very progressive in the 90s and wanted to provide the best they could for their kids.

This combination of circumstances is what allowed me to succeed where others might not have. When I tried to kill myself at a school rally in sixth grade, they didn’t shove it under the rug. They found a child psychiatrist — in the 90s, no less — who did his level best to diagnose me and treat me in the best way possible. I had therapists and psychologists, I did outpatient and inpatient treatments, and I even went to a special school for kids with mental illnesses.

My parents could afford all of this — even though they had to stretch and strain and take out loans, they had all of these things within their ability. Even though things were tight, we still took family vacations that were afforded to us by my grandma, who had a condo in Arizona where we could stay for free. I was able to travel all over the place — Cancun with my family, France thanks to my grandma, and England thanks to my school — even though I was struggling mentally.

Heck, my parents facilitated whatever activities I wanted if it would help me feel better. I played little league until I didn’t. I was in the marching band and Boy Scouts. I went to prom. If I wanted to do it and my parents thought it would help, they facilitated it.

When I got to college, my parents struck a deal: I could live with them as long as I got a job and paid my way. I was more than happy to take them up on this offer and worked my way through college. Thanks to a scholarship, I got a general transfer degree from my local community college for, essentially, free (I still had to pay for books).

When I transferred to our local state school, I didn’t need very much in loans to get through, even with a change in major a few semesters in. And, thanks to an internship and volunteer opportunities, I parlayed my degree into a series of jobs that landed me where I am today: a successful, married homeowner with four cats.

All of these things — every single one — were made possible for me by my parents, or my relatives, or my social class, or my school. This is not to knock my own abilities — I had to put in the energy and effort to take advantage of these opportunities. That’s not the point, though, because even if I hadn’t put in the effort, I still had those opportunities.

I didn’t make good choices, I had good choices.

More specifically, I had good choices available to me that I didn’t have to work for. My parents held my hand through middle and high school to make sure I was successful and had as many opportunities as I could manage. They were patient and calm and understanding, and they used every advantage they had to give me a better life — and oh boy did they have a lot of connections and advantages.

As a result of my parents’ efforts, I had so many good choices available to me growing up and well into adulthood. My dad is a mover and a shaker, and his connections were my connections (he would often tell me “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” and dad knew a lot of people). Right out of college, I landed interviews that I was drastically underqualified for on the strength of my (dad’s) connections.

And, while I did have to put in the effort to take those opportunities, I didn’t have to put in any effort to get them. I was handed so much simply because of my birth circumstances that, while I did have to work hard, I didn’t have to work nearly as hard as someone else with worse options.

My life is amazing right now, and it is almost entirely premised on the fact that I had opportunities available to me that not a lot of other kids did. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened to me if I had been born into a less wealthy family, or a less progressive one, or a non-white family. There is a fairly good chance that I would be either an alcoholic, an addict, or dead.

(Just to be clear, addiction is not a moral failing and I am not passing judgment on anyone who is an alcoholic or addicted to drugs. It’s just that fairly often, people with mental illnesses self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, creating comorbidity that can be damaging if not deadly.)

So, for those of you who are successful, take a minute to examine what got you there. There are lots of people who worked their butts off, hustled, and did everything in their power to make and take as many opportunities as possible. If you are one of them, congratulations! I am happy that you were able to make it.

However, if you look back at your life and start to see a lot of advantages that you had over your peers — money, status, connections, a supportive family — maybe take a minute to recognize that. It is entirely probable that you still had to work hard to get where you are, but you should also recognize that your options were much better than someone from a poor family, a less supportive family, or a less connected family.

And, if your counter-argument is that anyone can work hard and get ahead, then you are ignoring so much data that shows that no, no they can’t. For every “rags to riches” success story, there are a thousand people who tried as hard as they could and still couldn’t get anywhere because that’s how the system is designed.

Part of understanding privilege is recognizing that privilege frequently affords you options that others may not have. I had the privilege of being born into a white, middle to upper-middle-class family that had access to resources and connections. By sheer virtue of my birth, I was handed a thousand opportunities that the son of a poor black family wouldn’t have.

I had good choices from my very first day on this planet, and it is my prerogative to take them or not. Even though I had to work hard to get where I am, I had more than enough opportunities presented to me to be successful, and for me, part of coming to terms with my privilege is recognizing that fact.

And, now that I am in a position where I can affect the lives of others through my work, I am doing my best to ensure that those people can have more opportunities today than yesterday. For me, part of having privilege is working to ensure that others might benefit when they otherwise wouldn’t have. Having privilege means fighting to get equity and justice for everyone so that we might all have the opportunities that I was lucky enough to have been handed to me.

None of us is free until all of us are free. Liberty and justice for all.