A Ferrari is just a car among other Ferraris

 I probably don't sit down often and realise this, but I am quite grateful in life. I've been blessed with certain things in life, things that one might assume as commonplace and normal. However, a real look at the world and they're not as common and prevalent as one might believe them to be. 

When we step out of the bubble we were raised in, and actually open our eyes, our worldview can get shattered. Our perceptions of what's normal and commonplace, and what's rare and idiosyncratic, can get altered if we're willing to stare down into the abyss of the real world out there. 

I've always been a fan of numbers. I'll look at macroeconomic statistics, and I'm able to gauge how certain phenomena will play out in the real world. There are correlations, and then there are causalities, things that get measured via proxy variables if not the real ones. 

Every parent wants a bright child. I can't comment on how things are now. When I was a teenager in India, the pressure to perform in STEM subjects was intense. However, the reality is this. Whenever all children, all humans, for that matter, are put on a single scale of measurement, their performance pattern will form a roughly normal distribution (allowing for some skew). Whenever we measure kids based solely on how well they do in STEM subjects, there will only be 10-15% top performers. This shouldn't put any shade on the rest of the lot. If we measured them in social sciences, or sports, or performance arts, the composition of the top 10-15% would likely be entirely different. 

In a social order where the family's financial and social security rests on the shoulders of the child, the economic return on the education takes precedence over the actual talent of the child. The myopic lens of viewing education as a personal investment of the family funds leads one to focus on performance in STEM fields. Consequently, a parent is playing nothing but Russian roulette. Their only hope is that their child is either naturally good at STEM or finds it interesting enough to work hard and be good at it. 

The following are the 3 general themes of why I feel blessed when I look back at my life:

1. I had a stable home. My parents stayed together and took good care of my sister, me, and each other.
2. I had a good level of basic amenities in life (food/electricity/water/housing)
3. My parents were college-educated and highly invested in me, in addition to my education. I cannot overstate this point. They ensured that I received top-tier quality of education, and was responsible enough to value it and not waste it away.

The presence of all of the above factors is rare in India. However, when your country has 1.5 billion people, even 1% is 150 million. That is about 1/3rd of the entire population of Europe. I grew up in a bubble where this was commonplace. Whether it be classmates I had in my school, the friends I made in my college or my colleagues at work. Largely, they came from an environment with 2, if not all, of the above elements present in their upbringing. 

As a naive 20-year-old, I thought most people in a developed country, if not all, were raised in such an environment. This summer will mark 10 years living in Europe. 10 years of staring out into the abyss of European life. Parts of this world are different from the world I grew up in. Parts of it are very much the same. 

The average quality of life for a child in Europe is better than in India. A child growing up in Europe has a higher chance of growing up with a good level of basic amenities (factor #2). It may very well be that the percentage of children having 2 of the above 3 factors is higher, too. 

However, is a European child more likely to be born into an environment having all 3 of the above factors than an Indian child? I don't know. I'll need to stare into the abyss a bit longer for that. 

There are moments in a man's life when he looks back at the past, sees the present, and contemplates the future. Usually, these are times of a big change. Big turning points of life that will probably flash in front of his eyes before he meets the Almighty. 

This is the year of such a change for me. So, looking back, I cannot believe how blessed I was growing up, and for that, I'm grateful. When I see the present, as I go through some big decisions in my life, I am cautiously optimistic. Lastly, when I look into the future, I pray I'm able to give the next generation the 3 blessings that the universe provided me. 

P.S. - I know I'm comparing India, a country, to an entire continent, but please bear with me. It's a sentimental blog and not a macroeconomics lesson.