My fifteen-year-old son is finishing the first semester of his freshman year of high school. I can't tell you that he will be valedictorian one day, because his grades have been suspect this year.
For some reason, his French teacher omitted a test of his, which ultimately helped bring his grade up. My wife was feeling guilty about the fact that he got a bit of a free pass. I, being the capitalist, opportunist individual that I am, replied with a very simple statement: take what the world gives you.
My wife worried this small stroke of luck sent the wrong message — that it might teach him to expect things to work out without effort. I understood the concern. We want him to work hard, take responsibility, and own his results. But we do ourselves a disservice when we pretend the world is some perfectly balanced meritocracy where everything is fair and evenly distributed.
The truth is, life hands out breaks unevenly. Sometimes they come from a teacher's mood. Sometimes they come from timing, proximity, or knowing the right person at the right moment. We shouldn't pretend these moments don't exist. Learning to recognize them and use them wisely is a skill, not a character flaw.
Taking what the world gives you doesn't mean stop trying or stop caring. It means don't reject an opportunity just because it didn't arrive wrapped in a lesson about hard work. It means understanding that progress isn't always linear and that not every advantage needs to be explained, justified, or apologized for. Sometimes you get a little help, and the mature response is to move forward, not spiral in guilt.
What matters more is what you do next. Do you coast because things got easier for a moment, or do you use that breathing room to steady yourself and improve? A break doesn't define you. Your response to it does.
I've seen adults sabotage themselves because they're too proud to accept help or too worried about optics to say yes. They turn down opportunities because they didn't come the right way. Meanwhile, the people who move ahead aren't necessarily smarter or more deserving. They're just better at recognizing when the door is already cracked open.
This is as true in careers as it is in school. A conversation goes your way. A role opens unexpectedly. A decision is made in your favor that you didn't fully control. You don't get points for declining it. You get momentum for stepping through it. The world is already hard enough. When it gives you something, take it, use it, and then do the work to deserve where it carries you next.