No matter what family you were born into, no matter what your upbringing, it was your privilege to be born into that family. Were you born into wealth or poverty, were you treated kindly or unkindly, it was your privilege to be born when you were, where you were, and how you were taken care of or not taken care of.
 
On the surface, this may seem absurd and untenable. If you had what is considered a terrible childhood, this is true just the same. It is hard for you to see this. By and large, everyone grew up in an imperfect family, yet, beyond your understanding and the understanding of the world, it was the perfect family for you.
 
If you were born without limbs, regardless of everything, you were privileged. You had an opportunity that only you in all this world had exactly this way. If there were five of you in the same family, each of you had a unique opportunity that no one else had to take giant leaps and grow and grow at breakneck speed. You may have had a lot to outgrow, and, so, you grow out of it.
 
To be born on Earth of itself is a privilege. Easy your life or difficult, you had a supreme opportunity.
 
Of course, to you, a lifetime seems an eternity, and yet a lifetime is only a blink of an eye. As you look through a telescope, you will begin to see that time really and truly does not exist. Your lifetime, this lifetime exists out of time.
 
Is it necessarily better to be a rose than it is to be a dandelion? From whose view is it better? Be glad to be what you are. Be glad that you can rise above comparisons. Be glad you have gone beyond resentment. Whatever life has given to you, all of it is your privilege.
 
Please do not think I take lightly whatever hardships you may have been through. The thing is to go beyond it. If you could consciously know everything, you would know that you were blessed. Impossible, you might say, but, no, it is not only possible, it is so.
 
The secret is that you are to get beyond the world view of any situation you are in. The world has sorted things out in one way. The world has made declarations. Yet the world does not know what is good or bad. Anything can be good or bad in the world’s view. To be born with a golden spoon can be a hard row. To grow up in impoverishment can be a singular blessing. Regardless, you have been blessed.
 
No other family would give you the same opportunity to learn all that is for you to learn.
 
And if you are adopted and change families midstream, that too is the situation for you to grow from.
 
We are talking about not making judgments about your life and the family you were born to or adopted by.
 
Cinderella did not have an easy time of it, yet she was not vanquished. She was good-natured, and she came to be a princess who triumphed above her circumstances. Were her circumstances fair? Not from the world view.
 
I don’t want to imply that Cinderella was given tests. She was given great opportunity, and she emerged from the ashes and entered a palace with her true love.
 
She extricated herself from base circumstances. You might say that her prince came and lifted her out of the ashes. She already was worthy of a prince, and he came. The prince did not make her a princess. She already was, and so are you. And then her good fortune came. She was already ready for it.
 
Who had the greater good fortune? Cinderella in the ashes or her stepsisters who had everything they wanted?
 
What seem like accidents of birth are not accidents. They are the playing field upon which you build yourself from. How wide is your compassion now? Compassion is not feeling sorry. It is understanding.