Listening to an interview with Paul Tough regarding his new book on higher education had me thinking. He makes a point somewhere along the lines of “Stories like a girl going from homelessness to the Ivy league make it feel like it’s fair and everything is possible.”
It made me wonder, if stories like that pacify us to the reality of how unfair things are. Or if they awaken us to possibility.
I think both alternatives could be right. The exceptional is inspiring, but the other question is “why is this exceptional in the first place?”
Hopefully you could hold both realities together. Balancing the two to both celebrate victory, but fight for a bigger change.