What type are you?

[AndyWolves]

Having privilege doesn't mean you didn't work bloody hard to get where you are. The two aren't mutually exclusive as people sometimes think is insinuated.

I never had to worry about food, violence, homelessness, drunken parents, abuse, neglect, crime or anything like that growing up. I had parents who would encourage me, read to me, fund hobbies etc and I thought of all that to be normal. It's only now I appreciate that this isn't normal for everyone.

It's hard to fulfill your potential if you don't have a solid base to work from.

 

[Tom Hark]

Oh well, and there was I thinking I was lucky/privileged/fortunate to have been born with the skillz to get myself from an inner-city born, council-estate raised (though very happy) childhood to a position where my address book contains TV personalities and peers of the realm and dinner invites from best-selling authors when all the time it turns out I was just a bloody good grafter. Excellent!

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Andrea Pirlo getting Juve as his first job. Lampard getting Chelsea after half an underwhelming season with Derby. Mikel Arteta getting Arsenal.

Meanwhile, Vieira (spelling?) had to “prove” himself in MLS before getting consideration in Europe. Weird, isn’t it?

To be fair Vieira had joined Man City first as a player then as a long-term coaching project, so they just sent him to New York as part of the same group.

Had he not been in that position (largely by dint of him being a brilliant footballer), then he wouldn't have got that job in all likelihood.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Oh well, and there was I thinking I was lucky/privileged/fortunate to have been born with the skillz to get myself from an inner-city born, council-estate raised (though very happy) childhood to a position where my address book contains TV personalities and peers of the realm and dinner invites from best-selling authors when all the time it turns out I was just a bloody good grafter. Excellent!

I can only speak personally but I've never had to try particularly hard at much professionally. I don't find writing (on a professional level, where their standards are lower than the ones I apply to my own personal work) or translation difficult. Time consuming at times, sure. But I don't even have to think about it. Never had to try hard at school or university either, it just sort of happens (with the stuff I was good at, and the stuff I wasn't I just didn't bother with, because why waste my time on something I'm never going to excel at).

I'm sure that annoys a lot of people, not least my own family and friends at times.

To compensate I have a million personal/health/wellbeing challenges to face every single day, which is fun. Oh and at the moment I can't write about what I actually care about, it's a black hole of nothing to the point I think I might be finished.

 

[Tom Hark]

I can only speak personally but I've never had to try particularly hard at much professionally. I don't find writing (on a professional level, where their standards are lower than the ones I apply to my own personal work) or translation difficult. Time consuming at times, sure. But I don't even have to think about it. Never had to try hard at school or university either, it just sort of happens (with the stuff I was good at, and the stuff I wasn't I just didn't bother with, because why waste my time on something I'm never going to excel at).

I'm sure that annoys a lot of people, not least my own family and friends at times.

To compensate I have a million personal/health/wellbeing challenges to face every single day, which is fun. Oh and at the moment I can't write about what I actually care about, it's a black hole of nothing to the point I think I might be finished.

Exactly this. (Well, the first bit, anyway .) That you can earn well from doing something because you're innately good at it rather than because you have to sweat your nuts off to get half-good at it is, in my view, something that might be regarded as a privilege (was my point in answer to Paul's question). Yes, I've worked to make the most of my opportunities, but personally I feel privileged to have been given the tools to do so.

You do still have the tools, by the way. Perhaps you could try writing some stuff and then edit it as though it was someone else's.