Sometimes, It’s the Small Privileges That Make a Big Difference

We independently assess all our recommendations. Purchases through our links may earn us a commission.

Earlier this month, I stumbled into a Reddit thread with a simple, no-frills question: “What’s a privilege that most people don’t realize is a privilege?”

Of course, the question of what counts as a privilege can be divisive. In the same way that we have different definitions of what it means to be a self-made billionaire, we tend to picture privilege differently.

For some, privilege had to be something massive like being born into generational wealth or being born in a country with free healthcare.  Others simply think of privilege as something they have access to that makes their lives better but is also not available to a lot of people.

This led to answers that counted “being able to sleep through the night” as a form of privilege. Sounds like B.S, right? But it’s easy to think of sleep as nothing special if you can sleep through the night because you’re not homeless, have a mental illness, or you don’t have to work a second or third job in the evening just to make rent.

As u/blue4t described it, privilege is “Not having a stuffy nose. You only think about it when your nose is stuffed up. For everyone who has an unstuffed nose take pleasure in this wonderful privilege.” 

Armed with a definition, I started asking as many people as I could what details of their lives they count as a privilege and that, if they didn’t have it, would have changed their lives dramatically.

So, if you’re struggling to find something to be thankful for, read on. It’s ranked from the most significant to the least noticeable so you might just recognize that you’ve been taking more than a few things for granted.

It’s in the Little Things

1. A Free Education

When I started asking people what the key privilege of their lives was, the most common and nearly universal answer was that they received free education. Out of the eight people I asked, only one didn’t get a college degree and that was by choice. Another two went to a state-sponsored school where they virtually didn’t have to pay tuition. 

The rest had degrees from private universities, courtesy of a scholarship from the Foundation of Mom and Dad.

Koko, 24, blurted out in the middle of our call, “I went to a private high school too and I was just thinking that everyone’s gonna go to college because it was normal.” This is also the point where I realize everyone else I messaged and called before her had free private university degrees. “No one ever asked me if I was going to go to college. It was always ‘Where are you going?’ or ‘What degree are you going to take?’ It was just normal, it was a given.”

Dan, 29, is an accountant at a major MNC. When I asked him whether he thinks his free degree made a big difference, his answer was, “I think I’m kinda smart so I would have been able to get the same education from a state U or a community college.” I could hear him laugh, “But uh, now that I think about it, almost all of my co-workers come from the same schools.”

Without getting into the nitty-gritty of whether it’s still worth it for most Americans to get a college degree, college debt loan currently sits at a whopping $1.73 trillion in total according to Nitro.

Step into any city street and you’re bound to run into at least one person who is still paying off their student loans seeing as 1 in 4 people still have loan debt. That’s an estimated 44.7 million people paying an average of $37,172 a month.

It goes without saying that the college-to-job pipeline is flawed and often leaves fresh graduates stranded in a job market where they aren’t qualified enough or don’t have enough experience to get a job in their field as employers raise the bar from bachelor’s degree to master’s degree. It’s what u/AlexanderDenorius creatively calls a “degree fetish” and it puts graduates in a tough spot — even the ones who do have a master’s degree.

“I have a master’s and I see job listings that demand a master’s — okay, great, but they pay less than my annual tuition was.” u/undervaluedladyboss replied, “So even if you get an advanced degree, you will be paying for it forever.”

Obviously, though many of us were raised to “follow our dreams,” it just isn’t a feasible option for many. Meanwhile, of the eigh people I asked, three are getting additional schooling in law, medicine, or a master’s degree in their field. Again, courtesy of the Foundation of Mom and Dad.

2. A Lack of (Additional) Responsibilities

For 25-year-old River, who comes from a more humble background, the fact that he wasn’t responsible for anyone else was a privilege in and of itself. Being the youngest, he has no siblings to support and his parents are enjoying a cushy retirement.

“I didn’t think about it a lot when I was younger. I hear my other friends worry about putting food on the table, helping relatives. That kind of thing. Me, my money’s all mine. I had a custom D&D table made.”

J.D, 21, agrees, “My privilege? Huh, how did I get lucky? I guess you could count being an only child as one. My parents retired early, but they still paid for my college. No siblings so I got everything I needed and wanted.”

Not everyone gets that degree of freedom with their finances.

u/Liney21 shared their worries with r/personalfinance when they realized that their immigrant parents hadn’t saved for retirement. Their father has been disabled for over 14 years by the time the post was made and their mother received no job benefits. Before you ask why she won’t just switch careers, u/Liney21 explains that their mother is 52 years old and can’t afford the risk of a career switch late in life.

The amount that their mother would get from Social Security wouldn’t be enough to cover rent for the Brooklyn apartment they were staying at, meaning that u/Liney21 would have to figure out a way to support herself through college while bracing for the reality that, as an only child, it would be their responsibility to take care of their mother alone.

To make matters worse, her mother is one of 10% of working-age adults in the U.S. who don’t speak English well enough to get by on their own. 

“She needs to live near me,” u/Liney21 said. “I am her only support network.”

Judging by how the comment section turned out, it’s a shared experience among second-generation immigrants. So, if you aren’t in a similar position, that’s one more thing to be thankful for.

3. Living in a Safe Area

Going back to the original Reddit post, the top comment there counted “Feeling safe in your own home. Not worrying about rats, mice, roaches, bed bugs, bricks being thrown through windows, violence outside, break-ins.” among the privileges they enjoy.

While none of the eight people I asked live perfect lives, this is one point that never came up. It just wasn’t on any of their radars. 

Neighborhoods with higher poverty rates often have higher incidents of crime and the more financially unequal a neighborhood is, the more likely its residents will be victims of violent crimes.

The psychological stress that comes with living in dangerous areas is so great that a move to low-poverty neighborhoods has been shown to significantly improve the health of parents and adolescent girls because they go outside more. I’ll let you read between the lines on that.

Stats like these have led to the existence of Augurisk Now, an app that lets homebuyers or your average pedestrian know when they’ve crossed into an area with high incidences of crime. It also keeps track of environmental risks like storms and earthquakes, making it an invaluable tool for homebuyers. 

Many of the neighborhoods flagged by Augurisk Now for high chances of crime made less than $10,000 a year per household.

4. Being Able-Bodied, Healthy, and Free From Disability

According to u/jftghy457, privilege for some can look like, “Their health. If they are healthy.”

“Yup,” u/llaurenpie added in a reply. “That is my one genie wish. Chronic illness sucks.”

Having worked on a project related to providing higher education for students with special educational needs, one big flaw I’ve noticed with the way we support intellectually disabled children is that the support given to them largely focuses on getting them through the first few years of their education.

Support tends to taper off the older they get, leaving many without the skills needed to help them navigate adult life on their own — something they eventually will have to do as their parents age and become unable to support them.

As for physically disabled people, not even the era of digital and remote working has made it possible for them to enter the workforce with ease. Many disabled working adults are simply deemed too unfit for work and the ones that do make a little don’t make enough to get off disability benefits.

Some disabled persons may even choose not to get married, which is counted as a household increase in income, or get a job as that might put them in a situation where they have just enough to not qualify for disability benefits, but don’t make enough to actually survive without it. 

5. Drinkable Water From a Tap

As bad as 2020 and 2021 may have been, there’s one thing that many of us enjoy without even thinking about it. “It” is right in your kitchen and bathroom: safe drinking water.

If you have at least that, you’re already a lot luckier than more than 2 million Americans who live without basic access to safe drinking water and sanitation. You might be thinking, “Oh, you mean Flint?” but no, it’s not just Flint. Minnesotans face the risk of losing access to clean drinking water thanks to nearly 5,000 miles of oil pipelines located less than two miles away from at least 400 drinking water management areas.

That’s just counting people in the U.S. Worldwide, the total number of people who don’t have access to basic drinking water amounts to 844 million.

Look, I know getting socks for Christmas isn’t that exciting, but as #toxicpositivity as this sounds, it really could be worse.