101 - Your luck is a debt.

Dear David,

You are a very lucky little boy. You are healthy and happy. You have Mommie and Daddy, and a new little baby brother, who all love you very much. You have a nice home in a nice town, plenty of nice nutritious food to eat, your own room, and far too many toys.

You live in a beautiful country which, despite our troubles, is largely peaceful and free.

If you get sick, the Big Orange Ambulance that you like can take you to some of the best hospitals in the world in a matter of minutes, because they have a Siren.

You have good schools nearby, and when you are ready to go, you can go there for free. Both Mommie and I have good jobs and we save our money. So when you are ready to go to college, you can go to college.

Because you are so lucky, you are likely to spend a lot of time around other people who are as lucky as you are. Then it becomes easy to believe, that you are lucky for a reason. It becomes easy to believe that you have this luck simply because you deserve it.

But that's not true.

Your luck is a debt.

You are happy and healthy because Mommie and I have taken very good care of you. You have a nice home and lots of good food to eat because we both work very hard to provide you with these things.

You live in a beautiful country that is mostly peaceful and free because many people have worked very hard for lots of years, and sometimes even died so that little boys like you, who they never even knew, could live free and at peace.

You have good schools and hospitals to go to because many other people studied very hard for years and years at their colleges to be good teachers and doctors.

You have been very lucky that all these people worked so very hard so that you could be happy and healthy. You owe them a debt.

When you grow up, you should repay this debt. You can repay this debt by making sure that even more little boys, and girls, everywhere, are as lucky as you have been.