Born Unequal, Still Meaningful: Chance, Limits, Choice
My son asks why some children run faster than others.
I pause. Watch him struggle with his shoelaces. His fingers cannot quite coordinate the loops and knots. He tries again. Fails again. His face shows frustration that breaks my heart.
And I realize—we’re approaching the first of life’s cruelest lessons.
Before he was born, before he took his first breath, before he even existed—the dice were already thrown. The combinations that would determine everything about him were decided in darkness. By ancestors he’ll never meet. By genes he didn’t choose.
His height. His metabolism. Whether he’ll get sick easily or stay healthy. How his brain works. Whether he’ll struggle with sadness like I do. All of it—decided before he could have any say in the matter.
I look at him and see pieces of me. My narrow shoulders. My tendency to worry about everything. I look at his brother and see different pieces. Athletic grace I never had. Emotional strength I wish I possessed.
Same parents. Same house. Same food. Same love. But completely different starting points in life.
The lottery paid out differently for each of them.
I think about this during doctor visits. “Family history?” the doctor always asks. And I recite the list like a grocery inventory. Diabetes from my mother’s side. Heart disease from my father’s. Depression running through the family like a dark river that touches everyone eventually.
My grandfather had it. My father has it. I have it. And my son? What have I given him without meaning to? What time bombs are hiding in his cells? What gifts? What curses?
This thought wakes me up at 3 AM sometimes. Keeps me staring at the ceiling. What genetic inheritance am I passing to a future I won’t see?
Some people believe we choose our lives before birth. Choose our parents, our circumstances, our challenges. It’s a comforting thought. It means everything has purpose.
But genetics tells a different story. A story of randomness. Of molecular dice rolled in cellular darkness. No purpose. No choice. Just chance.
Neither story offers much comfort when you’re watching your child struggle with something that came written in his DNA.
Think about intelligence. The thing everyone values most. Some children are born with brains that make learning easy. They read once and remember. Math makes sense to them like breathing. Languages come naturally.
Other children—like my nephew—struggle with dyslexia. The letters jump around on the page. Reading is exhausting. He’s smart—I know he is—but his brain works differently. He has to work twice as hard to get half the recognition.
Is that fair? No. But fair doesn’t matter to genetics.
The lottery extends to things we don’t even think about. Pain tolerance. Some people barely feel injuries. Others—like me—feel everything intensely. Addiction susceptibility. Some people can drink socially their whole lives. Others become alcoholics from the first sip.
How fast we age. How well we handle stress. Whether trauma stays with us or fades. All of it—distributed unevenly before we’re born.
And here’s the cruelest part: we pretend it’s all choice.
We tell people they can overcome anything with hard work. That success depends on effort alone. That if you just try hard enough, believe hard enough, work hard enough—you can be anything.
This lie makes genetic disadvantage feel like personal failure.
My neighbor Karim runs marathons. He barely trains. Just runs and runs, effortless, like he was born doing it. Because in a way, he was. His muscles, his lungs, his whole body built for running.
I struggle with five-mile jogs. Huffing, puffing, legs burning. Not because I’m lazy. Not because I don’t try. But because my body wasn’t built the same way his was.
He didn’t earn his running ability through moral superiority. He won a genetic lottery. I didn’t lose mine through moral failure. I just got different dice.
But here’s what I’m learning. Slowly. Painfully. With a lot of mistakes along the way.
Acknowledging the genetic lottery doesn’t mean giving up. Doesn’t mean nothing matters. Doesn’t mean we’re just victims of our DNA.
Within our inherited limits, choice still exists. Still matters. The anxious person—like me—can learn to cope. Can’t cure the anxiety, but can learn to live with it. The diabetic can manage blood sugar. Can’t cure diabetes, but can control it. The depressed person can seek help. Can’t erase depression, but can survive it.
The wisdom isn’t in pretending we’re all equal. We’re not. The wisdom is in accepting our biological starting point while maximizing what we can control.
Not comparing our genetic hand to others’. But playing our cards—whatever they are—with skill and grace.
I watch my son practice handwriting tonight. His letters are uneven. Shaky. Despite trying so hard. Despite wanting so much to get it right. His teacher suggested occupational therapy. Fine motor challenges, she said gently.
I see it clearly now. The genetic lottery in action. He inherited my clumsy fingers. My trouble with coordination. Something I gave him without knowing, without choosing, without wanting to.
But I also see other things. His determination. His creativity. The particular way his mind works—connecting ideas in ways I never would. Making jokes that surprise me. Seeing the world from angles I miss.
The dice gave him constraints. But also gifts. His life will be about making the most of both. Finding ways around the constraints. Maximizing the gifts.
Isn’t that what we all do? All of us playing this rigged game?
My father never ran. His knees couldn’t take it. But he walked every morning, slow and steady. He couldn’t change his knees, but he could still move.
My mother inherited anxiety that made social situations terrifying. She couldn’t cure it. But she learned to prepare, to breathe, to survive gatherings even when her hands shook.
My friend Rubel has ADHD. His brain won’t focus the way others’ do. He can’t change that. But he’s learned to work with it. Short bursts of intense focus. Multiple projects. A life structured around how his brain actually works, not how it “should” work.
We’re all sculpting meaning from raw material we didn’t choose. Finding beauty in bodies we didn’t pick. Creating purpose within parameters set before our first breath.
My son will learn this too. That some children run faster not because they’re better, but because their muscles were built differently. That his struggle with shoelaces isn’t failure—it’s just his particular challenge to overcome.
He’ll learn that the genetic lottery is real. That it’s unfair. That it shapes everything from the moment of conception.
But he’ll also learn that the hand you’re dealt isn’t the whole game. That within our inherited limits, we still choose. Still create. Still matter.
The genetic lottery is rigged by randomness. But the game is still worth playing.
Not because we might win. Not because it’s fair. But because playing—with whatever cards we got—is what makes us human.
Tonight, as my son finally gets one shoelace tied—crooked, loose, but tied—I see it. The small victory over genetic inheritance. The triumph of determination over limitation.
He didn’t choose his clumsy fingers. But he’s choosing not to let them stop him.
And maybe that’s all any of us can do. Acknowledge the dice. Accept the hand. Then play it for all it’s worth.
The lottery is over. The game has begun. And despite everything—despite the unfairness, the randomness, the cruelty of genetic chance—it’s still a game worth playing.
