Being born into a rich family seems to be the ultimate example of brutal unfairness. While most people in the world who are born into non-wealthy homes have to deal with uncertainty regarding their future, what they will do with their life, how they will make ends meet, etc., those born into rich families do not have these issues to nearly the same degree of urgency.

But, I am going to attempt to make you feel better about being born into a family that cut coupons or only ate at Outback on a special occasion.

First off, though, I should just take a moment to point out that if you were born in America or a comparable first-world country, then you are probably rich by world standards. According to Pew Research, 56% of Americans are "High Income", 32% of Americans are "Upper Middle Income", 7% of Americans are "Middle Income", 3% of Americans are "Low Income", and a whopping 2% of Americans are "Poor", when compared to the rest of the world.

So, if you are in the top 98% of Americans, then count your blessings you ungrateful pricks.

That said, "richness" is, in many cases, relative. You may be objectively rich, but if most of the people in your peer group have more (or appear to have more) than you, then you are likely to feel envious.

For the purposes of this article, though, I will define "the rich" to be people who are waayyyy up in that whole "top 1%" bracket we hear so much about. I'm talking mansions, yachts, summer homes in the Hamptons, old money rich.

Pssht, mine's bigger
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What could possibly be bad about being born into a family such as this?

For starters: paranoia. Anyone who has a great deal of wealth also stands to have a great deal of fear that their wealth will be taken away from them. They would be worried not by something as such as a home robbery, as they more than likely live in a place quite removed from any violent crime (plus their home would likely only account for a small fraction of their total wealth). They would instead be worried about friends, family members, business partners, lawyers, etc. who would try to deceive them out of their money.

But the bigger problem that rich kids face is that...life never really gets better for them.

Think about it: if from the day you were born you ate nothing but the finest food, had the nicest house, stayed in the most exquisite hotels, went on vacations to the most beautiful places in the world, had all the coolest and most expensive toys...where can you go from there?

Sure, as you get older technology will improve and more new and neat things will come out that you can easily buy...but in terms of your level of comfort you pretty much peak at birth.

Lots of people love to watch reality shows about rich people who complain about the most meaningless things, and part of it is probably just theatrics for the sake of ratings, but there is probably a great deal of truth to it as well. If all that you know is living the high-life, then anything that isn't the best seems dreadful in comparison.

If you grow up in a wealthy family, then your life is probably without struggle. You may still think you have problems (probably first-world problems on steroids), but in an absolute sense your life is pretty easy. Because of this, you probably frequently encounter stress in the most seemingly trivial of situations. Sure, they don't seem trivial to you, but I'm sure many people would love to have your problems.

One who grows up knowing constant struggle is better prepared to deal with some of the more trivial things that life throws at them. Their threshold for stress is calibrated differently. They don't freak out about not getting the president's suite because once had to fight off their alcoholic father, for example.

And it is the very times of extreme stress and struggle that make possible the greatest joys that life has to offer. It's those times when you really don't know if you will make it, the times that you've given up all hope, and the times where failure seems like more of a reality than success. If you live through these times and eventually come out ahead, then there is no sweeter taste of victory. If you grow up rich, then life is either "normal" or "sub-par". Worse yet, if you grow up rich and something happens that causes you to lose your wealth, then it's a long and hard fall from the top.

If, however, you grow up into more humble circumstances, then life has such great potential. If you work hard and achieve financial success, then you open yourself up to worlds you never knew existed. Fine foods and exotic locales that were once a fantasy can now be a reality. If "lodging" for you once meant a dirty motel, then even a moderately nice hotel seems like luxury. If a series of specific events once had to go perfectly right in order for your car to start, then having a relatively new car with functioning doors and windows is quite an upgrade. If you used to live in a house with bars on the windows and couldn't sleep without a loaded shotgun next to your bed, then a nice house in a quiet suburb feels like a mansion.

Now, of course, the state of one's finances is not the only thing that makes one happy, and many of life's great pleasures can't be bought, but people tend to fixate a great deal on what can be bought, so it's important to keep things in perspective.

If you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth, then don't fret. If you play your cards right, then you may fall short of super-wealth, but the life you can afford for yourself will probably outrank the life you were born into. And it will feel all the better...because you did it.