The privilege of risk
<i>Risk becomes a vehicle by which privilege reinforces itself – only the privileged can take risks and only risk is rewarded.</i><p>This is patently untrue. My parents emigrated to the States in 1997 (from the post-Communist Romania) with two briefcases, two kids, and $2,000 -- <i>hardly</i> privileged. After their Visas expired, we technically had illegal immigrant status (after a few thousand dollars in lawyer fees and many years, we paid a fine and were eventually naturalized in 2008). We won the Visa lottery, yes, but I know of immigrants that did not and <i>still</i> found a way to citizenship. My parents now own a $1M house in Southern California, one of my uncles (also emigrated to the US in the 90s) owns his own business. He doesn&#x27;t even have a college degree. It wasn&#x27;t easy getting here (we recently celebrated 20 years of America): my college-educated parents had to work menial jobs like washing Target toilets, cleaning houses, and flooring and construction.<p>The gain for myself and my sister, our cousins, and some day hopefully my kids -- is immeasurable. The risk, even moreso. I know of Romanians that swam the Danube (pre-1989) and were shot at and imprisoned. The risk of freedom was worth it. Everyone can take risks. Investing $10,000 and 6 months of your life in a startup is <i>not</i> ruin-inducing. And perpetrating this kind of argument is, imo, doing a disservice to people that are on the fence.<p>Obviously, I don&#x27;t have the same kind of opportunities as a rich trust-fund kid from Manhattan. But I&#x27;ll be damned if I don&#x27;t try. I recently quit my cozy six-figure job in ad-tech to try and bring some of my ideas to fruition. Will I fail? The odds are stacked against me -- I&#x27;ve failed before and failing sucks. The purpose of life is not wallowing in self-pity, but rising above the adversity. I leave you with this quite by Nassim Taleb[1]:<p><i>Risk takers can be socially unpredictable people. Freedom is always associated with risk taking, whether it led to it or came from it. You take risks, you feel part of history. And risk takers take risks because it is in their nature to be wild animals.</i><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;incerto&#x2F;how-to-legally-own-another-person-4145a1802bf6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;incerto&#x2F;how-to-legally-own-another-person...</a>