Look, your kids weren’t lucky enough to be born billionaires. They weren’t born royalty and they won’t inherit an empire. Or maybe they will. Maybe you are the exception who can give them that. Maybe your kids will be that lucky. Or maybe your kids will be lucky that you can’t give them that.
Remember, the privilege that plucked Marcus Aurelius from obscurity and transformed him into the great Stoic emperor we admire today is the same privilege that transformed his son Commodus into a guileless egotist who brought about the long decline of the Roman Empire.
The point here is we don’t control that kind of luck. It is not ours to pass on to them.
But we can make them very, very lucky in another way—at least right now. We can give them a loving parent (ourselves). We can give them our best. We can give them our all. As the lyrics in The Killers’ song go:
And every time I see my parents in the prime of their lives
Offering their son the kind of love he could never put down
Part of me is still that stainless kid, lucky
In this quiet town
You can give them that. You can give them that right now. It’s the greatest inheritance there is. It’s the luckiest break in the world.