Jin Park has a message for you: Your talents are not really your own. The graduating Harvard senior said as much during the university’s recent commencement ceremonies.

“Our particular positions within the web of society come to us most of all through fortune, not desert,” he said. Therefore, he added, “we must think about our talents as a collective asset.”

The comment captures the thought radiating from many college campuses today. Privilege is a fraught topic, economically and racially. One tendency can be to think of it in a zero-sum way – that advancement takes from one to give to another. By that reckoning, “collective” thinking sometimes sounds like just making everyone average.

But that’s not really what Mr. Park was saying. When we realize that so much of our success is built from good beyond our control – be it loving parents, a stable community, or dedicated teachers or mentors – we realize that that good is greater than us, and we have just had the fortune to share it. This turns that zero-sum equation on its head. Goodness, when shared, grows. Free market capitalism essentially operates on that principle.

By that reckoning, one of the most powerful questions anyone can ask, Park said, is not “What am I going to do with my talents?”; it is “What am I going to do for others with my talents?”

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