life isn't fair.
(good.)
imagine how boring we’d all be if it was.
life handed you some things.
it withheld others.
congratulations. you’re officially a person.
some people are born beautiful. some are brilliant. some have parents who can open doors. some can make friends with a brick wall. some are naturally disciplined. some can sell ice to a polar bear. some are six-foot-three. some can sing. some can code. some somehow remember everyone’s birthday.
nobody got everything.
nobody got nothing.
and yet we spend an embarrassing amount of our lives staring at someone else’s hand instead of playing our own.
we love to keep score.
they had supportive parents.
she has pretty privilege.
he got lucky.
they had money.
she knew the right people.
okay?? so does half the internet and they’re doing nothing with it.
you don’t get a medal for having the gift.
you get judged on whether you used it.
and unless your five-year plan is inventing a time machine, what exactly do you plan to do with the scorecard?
the only thing that matters is what you have.
and whether you’re willing to use it.
I used to be weirdly embarrassed that I work for my family’s business.
internally, I’d call myself a nepo baby before anyone else could.
the funny thing is, no one ever actually said it to me.
I did.
I spent almost ten years trying to outrun the family business.
I went to school for something completely different. worked in different offices. tried different careers. tried really hard to prove I could make it on my own.
because somewhere along the way, I decided that accepting an opportunity meant I hadn’t earned it.
looking back?
what a ridiculous waste of energy.
about three years ago I finally had the thought that changed everything.
why am I pretending this isn’t an opportunity?
followed immediately by another.
why am I being such an ungrateful bitch?
so I stopped apologizing for what I’d been given.
and I started using it.
not because it made life easy.
because it made life possible.
here’s what people don’t tell you about working for your family’s business.
you don’t really get to quit.
family dinners become work meetings.
your mistakes aren’t just your mistakes, they’re attached to your family’s name.
employees watched you grow up, so proving yourself never really ends.
boundaries? good luck.
and if you have a bad day at work, your family sees it. every day.
the pressure isn’t just about your own performance.
it’s your family’s reputation. their livelihood. something they spent decades building before you ever showed up.
that’s not a complaint.
it’s just reality.
every advantage comes with a price.
the mistake is pretending you shouldn’t use the advantage because it isn’t perfect.
we do this everywhere.
someone is naturally gorgeous. use it.
someone is incredibly smart. go build something with that brain.
someone has incredible connections. call them.
someone inherited a business. learn everything you can.
someone wasn’t born conventionally attractive. become magnetic in a different way. get stronger. develop style. learn how to communicate. build a life people want to be around.
you don’t get bonus points for refusing to use what you’ve got.
and you don’t lose the game because someone else started with something you didn’t.
for me?
I’m lucky. I’m conventionally pretty. I’m funny. I’m cool.
I’ve also struggled with my body image for years.
my confidence hasn’t always matched what people assumed.
and despite what it may have looked like from the outside, money hasn’t always been easy either.
see?
nobody gets everything.
nobody escapes something.
that’s why I stopped obsessing over fairness.
fairness is a terrible strategy.
leverage is much better.
what’s working? use it.
what’s missing? build it.
what’s out of your control? let it go.
at some point you have to stop using your disadvantages as a personality.
because while you’re busy keeping score of everything life didn’t hand you, someone else is building a life with exactly what they did get.
the girl counting what she didn’t get and the girl building with what she did are the same age.
one of them just decided.
xx
Steph