I write these reflections on a device I could never have designed, running on software written by thousands of people I will never meet, delivered over an internet I did not build. I think in a language I did not invent, using concepts and abstractions refined over centuries by people long dead. I became a professor because teachers, some of whom I barely remember, took the time to push me, and one in particular, my father, kicked my behind when I was feeling sorry for myself and told me to keep going. I live in a society safe and stable enough that I could afford to take intellectual risks rather than worry about where my next meal was coming from. And underneath all of it runs a thick vein of plain luck: where I was born, when I was born, the accidents of health and circumstance that could so easily have gone the other way.

Why does this matter? Because how we answer the question of where our success comes from shapes two important things: our ego and our gratitude. If I believe I did it all myself, I become insufferable, entitled and, frankly, blind. I start to believe that those who have less simply did not work as hard, which is both cruel and usually wrong. But if I recognise how much I stand on the shoulders of others and of sheer good fortune, something better happens. I become genuinely grateful, which as I have written elsewhere is one of the most reliable routes to a good life. And I feel a sense of obligation to pay it forward, to be for someone else the teacher or the lucky break that others were for me. So, as a reflection for today: how much of what you have did you truly build alone?