Thought of the Day: Those who have long enjoyed such privileges…

December7, 2025

”Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are certain quotes that shut you up a little. This is one of them. FDR had a way of saying things that left no space for excuses or soft landings. Today’s Thought of the Day forces me to sit with a truth I usually try to sidestep. Most of what I enjoy in my life was bought for me by people I will never meet, people whose names I will never know, and people who never got the chance to enjoy the peace they created.

It is strange how privilege works. The longer you live with it, the less you notice it. You stop registering the safety in your home. You stop appreciating the quiet freedoms that shape your day. You forget that walking your kid to the bus stop without fear would have looked like a miracle to someone living in another era. Privilege becomes background noise. You stop hearing it until something reminds you to listen.

Days like December 7 do that. They force you to notice the cost of what you take for granted. It is uncomfortable, because it is supposed to be.

I think about my own life in these moments. My mornings are a blur of backpacks and cereal bowls. My nights are a rotation of laundry, bedtime resistance, and the tiny parenting negotiations that will probably earn me both sainthood and therapy bills someday. And in the middle of all of it, I forget how lucky I am simply to be here. To live somewhere that lets my kids laugh, play, and grow up without the weight of war on their shoulders.

Privilege is invisible until you ask who paid for it.

And that is what this Thought makes me do. It makes me pause. It makes me widen the frame beyond my own day and remember that peace is not natural. It is not automatic. It is not guaranteed. It is something someone built, protected, defended, and ultimately handed forward.

It also makes me ask what I am doing with the life I was given. If others paid the price, the least I can do is spend the life well. Be kinder. Be more patient. Be more aware. Not perfect. Just awake.

When I think about the generations that came before us, I realize their idea of sacrifice is far bigger than the small, daily ones we grumble through. They gave years. Futures. Families. Comfort. Certainty. Some gave their lives. And no amount of modern distraction should make us forget that.

This Thought of the Day is not about guilt. It is about gratitude. Honest gratitude. The kind that changes how you move through your day. The kind that turns complaining into perspective. The kind that reminds you that almost everything in your life is a privilege, not an accident.

So today, I am trying to live with that awareness. I am trying to remember the cost. And I am trying not to take a single ordinary moment for granted.

🧠 Read the full blog post where I explore this Thought of the Day and the Question of the Day

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