You’re so lucky…

You’re so lucky.

It’s a phrase we all utter without much thought, in a multitude of situations. It’s often a lazy comment because, most of the time, it is said about situations that don’t have much to do with luck at all. Luck is success or failure apparently brought by chance, rather than through your own actions. Something totally out of our control. When you (or I) say, ‘you’re so lucky’ I think we usually mean any or all of the following more true, but sometimes also more challenging or brutally honest, things:

What you really mean is: You are so privileged. I was born to white parents who love each other and are still married and happy. There was always food on the table and whilst we certainly weren’t rich, there was enough money to educate the kids and have some holidays. I was born with a pretty healthy level of intelligence and I was encouraged to use it. I was born without any physical or mental disability or illness. I was born in an English speaking, first world country. All of these things are total accidents of birth. That is luck. But, far more importantly, because of the whiteness, the economic status, the first world location, that is privilege. Pure and simple. And it has to be acknowledged that without that privilege, the rest of my musings on luck change dramatically. So, in some respects, the phrase ‘you’re so lucky’ is all that ever needs to be said if people are in fact referring to my privilege.

But I suspect that’s the rarely the whole story. So, not forgetting that privilege overlays everything…

What you really mean is: You have made different life choices to me. ‘You’re so lucky’ always ignores the fact that I’ve made choices and decisions that have led me to where I am today, sitting in a lodge in Chilean Patagonia (or on the back deck at my parents’ place in Port Fairy when I hit publish!). I worked from age 13, I chose to go down the university path, I worked in jobs that paid me ok and then decent and then good and then great money. I chose those paths. That is not luck. Those choices and the choices to be disciplined and set priorities that allowed me save money enabled me to then choose to leave university for a year to travel, to leave a job at 26 to travel, to leave a job at 39 to travel.

What you really mean is: I don’t understand this. These people genuinely just don’t get it – why would I quit a good job, leave my home, travel the world? They say it because it’s the most socially acceptable platitude they land on. They actually can’t think of anything worse. Whilst I also don’t really understand that perspective, I don’t actually mind it.  They don’t have a problem with me doing what I’m doing, it’s just so far away from what they would ever want for themselves that they don’t know how to even discuss it beyond platitudes. I love the curious among this group that actually delve a little deeper to understand my choice. They don’t want it for themselves, but they want to understand.

What you really mean is: You have made a bad choice. This group do have a problem with my choice and they also have no interest in trying to understand it. They say ‘you’re so lucky’ because heaven forbid they actually break a societal norm and say what they think. Often they think I’m irresponsible or selfish or that I’m engaging in stupidly risky behaviour. They actually actively disapprove of the choice. These people are few and far between and I always feel sorry for them because they will never understand or experience the wonder and awe that comes along with new places, people, sights, sounds, smells. They will stay in their small worlds, as small people.

What you really mean is: I am wildly jealous. Maybe this person traveled when they were younger and know how wonderful it can be. Or they’ve got young kids and their life is not their own right now and whilst they wouldn’t change their choices, the shininess of a different life is alluring. Or they actively are seeking a change but haven’t been quite able to take the leap yet. Or they really do wish they had made different choices at some stage that would see them jumping on a plane to follow me. Or they are just having a crappy, awful year and they want to escape for a bit. These people know where I am and what I’m doing has very little to do with luck. But admitting you want or dream of a different life, even if it’s just in your imagination or for a little moment, is nowhere near as easy as throwing out the ‘you’re so lucky’ line.

What you really mean is: Why is life so easy for you? Again, fully acknowledging my privilege means that my life really is incredibly easy, let’s limit this to people with similar upbringings and privileges to me.  These are the people who ignore the work and the sacrifice and the choices that enabled me to be here. They just see the money it must be costing and the Instagram photos and the lack of responsibility. They ignore that in living this life, there may be other parts of my life that are not always easy. Being single and child free at my age doesn’t always sit easily with society or sometimes with me. My job choices saw me working long hours at times and living a fairly beige life for periods. Travel, whilst wonderful, is also stressful and tiring – think back to the last time you were in a really unfamiliar situation for a long period of time, like learning to drive or starting a new job where you didn’t know the ropes or moving to a new town and having to find the supermarket and hardware shop and make new friends. Then imagine doing that every day in a foreign language. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it for me.

I’ve talked about this in terms of travel and my current situation, but these alternatives can be applied to lots of situations, like the off the cuff comments of ‘Oh you have one boy and one girl, you’re so lucky’ or ‘you’re so lucky you speak a second language’ or ‘you’re so lucky you live by the beach’ or ‘oooh a new car, aren’t you lucky?’. As soon as you move beyond the platitude, there are any number of layers behind these life choices or circumstances – hard work, smart investments, huge sacrifice, heartbreak, illness, loss – who knows? I’m sure you have your own examples and experiences of the phrase being used, when actually the person means something completely different and no doubt, like me, you’ve uttered it a thousand times before. Even if it’s silly to think people will stop hating on others’ choices, here’s what I’d like to hear and what I will try to say instead of ‘you’re so lucky’:

• Aren’t we amazingly fortunate to have been born in Australia?
• You must have worked pretty hard to be able to do that, have fun!
• Far out I would hate that, but how great for you to be doing something that makes you happy!
• Tell me about why you made the choice to do this? I’m interested to hear because I don’t really get the appeal.
• I really wish I could be doing that, it’s not where life is for me right now, but tell me all about it so I can live vicariously!
• Good on you! We’ve all got our own thing right?

Can you relate?

PS. I was really not sure about posting this until I saw a comment in a solo female travel Facebook group I follow today made by an older woman to a young woman who was travelling for an extended period with no job to return to. After an exchange about the value of one way tickets vs returns, the older woman said “I would never be lucky enough to be in that situation”. I immediately read it as passive aggressive. Perhaps that’s not fair, but it smacked of jealousy and it prompted me to hit publish. Well done young woman who is travelling the world on her own terms, you must have worked hard to achieve that and I hope it’s everything you want it to be.