Equal Opportunity Doesn't Mean Equal Outcome

We're at the age of an abundance of opportunity, opportunities our ancestors could only have dreamt of. Now, your parents being a farmer doesn't mean you also have to be a farmer. You don't have to be stuck at a job you don't like. You can make a living by just traveling the world while documenting your journey on social media(killing two birds with one stone!). You don't have to be the smartest or bring the most value or even work the hardest to make it big, you just have to employ the right leverage.

Opportunities have become near infinite that it has become an uneasy task to choose which one to pursue. The amount of relative wealth has increased signifcantly over the past decade and the standard of living has also increased with it.

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How has equal opportunity been created?

The story goes that two visionaries were thinking of building a fast way to communicate with each other, almost instantly. This platform with not only allow them to communicate near instantly but also to store and share their information. Once it was built and they starting using it, the first party marvel at the invention and the potential it will have if it was accessible to the masses. But the other party didn't felt that way, They wanted it to be a close connection, only for the few of them. So the battle ensued between them whether this platform should be a close connection or an open connection. Fortunately for us, the first party won, the gem couldn't be kept forever a secret.

This is a short analogy of the birth of the internet

When the internet was available to the public, businesses and individuals converge on the platform trying to see what it was about. Builders got to work seeing the potential the platform had. They built the applications, products and services that power up the internet and as a byproduct created massive wealth for themselves. Fast forward to now, not only has this applications become household names but they've also become indispensable tools for using the internet.

This tools that have been built on the internet has enable the user to have access to a vast repository of resources and assets. Both from the stand point of knowledge and the stand point of opportunities.

What this means for everyone?

This means that anyone, anywhere can start an ecommerce business (Shopify's motto). If the person lacks the knowledge, there are countless tutorials on YouTube that can take you through the process from A to Z.

Anyone can open a social media page and build it to 100K+ followers.

Anyone can start a blog website.

Anyone can publish an e-book or an online course.

I can go on and on.....

The point is you don't need someone's permission to do this. It's not that you have to be black or white, male or female, smart or stupid to be able to do this. Anyone can do this regardless of the background you came from.

Technology is indiscriminate and all inclusive.

There are no guarantees...

Wait, not so fast! Anyone can do it means you can do it too but it doesn't mean you'll succeed if you do it. Since the playing field has been leveled, all kinds of people are on the field playing the game with you. Some of them will be better equipped than you, want it more than you and play the game better than you.

Just being able to play the game doesn't guarantee you'll become a winner. At least, not in the first try.

We all can't have the same outcome.

Without a doubt, We're all the same but we're also different. It's one of the paradoxes of life. We have different abilities, innate talents and feel drawn to certain paths. Everyone is at a different phase in their journey, some are slow walkers while some walk fast. Give two people $100 and tell them to 10X it in a month, the first might do it in a week while the other will take more than a month.

You really can't make sense of it because it's beyond rationality. Anyhow, if each of us had the same outcome when we try out opportunities, life would've become very boring. Competition is nice, diversity is nicer.

Closing thoughts

Clearly the wider world doesn't fully reflect the concept of equal opportunities yet. Some places are still offline, bound by the written rules of society or lack of proper access. For us living where it has been reflected, we sometimes wonder why we haven't make it yet like Mark did. Since we use the same platform and have the same tools, why do we lack behind? Is he gaming the system?

Well, equal opportunities doesn't mean equal outcomes. And let's not go into the discussion that the platform secretly doesn't want us to succeed! That's not really true. In most cases, the problem is with us.

Let's not play the victim. It's a game, we just have to become better at it and success with come to us.