There was once a mouse who lived in an attic. One day she gave birth to a bunch of baby mice on an old monopoly board. Afterward, she fell asleep exhausted. Each of the baby mice looked down and assumed the place they had been born on the monopoly board was their station in life.
The mouse born on Boardwalk Avenue looked down on the mouse born on Mediterranean Avenue, and because every mouse got the same number of turns and two hundred dollars when they crossed “Go,” they assumed the arrangements were fair. When the mother mouse awoke she found some of her children rich and others poor. Some of her children had hotels, others were without homes. Some of her babies were even in jail.
The mouse born on Boardwalk ran up to the mother and blurted, “Aren’t you proud of me? I have been your most successful child. I even gave charity to some of your more disappointing children!” The mother mouse, shook her head and replied, “No one is a success who has forgotten to care for their brothers and sisters. You owed them more than charity, you owed them justice. I am not ashamed of my poorer children. They have failed at a game they never should have had to play, but you have failed at life itself.”