Jeff Corbett writes for the Newcastle Herald: A long trail of lucky stars

Sure, in accepting an award people often thank family for their unstinting support, and young people will often give special thanks to mum and dad, who've probably been financing the endeavour, but as Dr Kong pointed out there is much more to it.

As well as his mother, there are his grandmother and grandfather, for starters, and he told how his grandfather worked for a long time on a tug in Newcastle harbour, that as an Aboriginal man he was respected for his work commitment.

When Dr Kong said his grandfather's commitment to work had been reflected in him and others in his family, he is acknowledging the influence that has underpinned Dr Kong's long, hard journey to surgeon, ear nose and throat specialist, medical researcher and academic.

"I'm very blessed," Dr Kong told this paper, and he is.

I happen to know, however, that it hasn't always been beer and skittles for Dr Kong.

Quite a few years ago I told my children assembled at dinner that one person they should thank for their privilege is their paternal grandmother.

I tried to ignore the cries of "privilege!" and "what privilege?", adding that it was her slog as a single mother to educate her very unwilling son that allowed them to dine well.

My point was that the rewards are not usually the result of only our effort, the same point made by Dr Kong, although I was not so convincing.

Like Dr Kong, I count my lucky stars every day.

I'm reminded of one of those stars every day by my croaky voice, which is a wonderful voice when I came so very close to having no voicebox as a result of laryngeal cancer 16 years ago.

The junior surgeon in the duo who performed the same operation twice in 24 hours, because one margin was positive, was Dr Kong, so I too am in debt to his mother, grandmother and harbour-working grandfather.

He recently, by the way, gave me another all clear 16 years after those operations.

Another star that usually makes my count is my family, not so much the fact that I have one but that the family I have is a happy one.

I know people whose life's disappointment is that they have no family, or are estranged from their family, and I feel for them.

Having a happy family in my case is not so much luck as management. The greatest service I have done for my children is to marry their mother.

I feel fortunate every day that we can scrape by financially, and while the worst we have ever been is cash strapped I am confident that being financially comfortable is a whole lot better than being financially uncomfortable.

All you need is enough, which may not be as much as you imagine while you're slogging for the mortgage.

Seems strange, I know, but I am grateful that I am disinclined to criminality, because I see people who are inclined to criminality and there is nothing, nothing, about their life that seems to me worth wanting.

At some point we were all babies, these people inclined to criminality, me and Dr Kong, and into the bassinet as well we can toss the people whose life seems to have been a series of wrong turns and those who are not sharing the affluence.

The main differences between the babies is going to be in their genes and in their upbringing, and Dr Kong is referring to both when he speaks of his mother and grandparents, and so do I.

We were both blessed by genes and family example.

But many of the babies will not be so blessed, in either department. Some will struggle as adults to overcome the poor start and succeed, and these people are the highest achievers; some will struggle and not succeed and some won't struggle at all.

Some will be merely the latest in a long genetic line of people who did not know work as we know it and who have had not seen family members working as we work, and I think of the Aboriginal people I saw sitting under trees in the Northern Territory.

It makes eminent sense to sit under a tree on a hot day, as these people have done for countless generations, but I had the strong sense that they were trapped between the old and the new.

Some of the unblessed babies will be people of European stock who may become the third or fourth generation without a job since the market for unskilled workers went into decline late last century.

We see them, we recognise them.

Sadly many of us who were born blessed are too ready to condemn those who were not.

I have been, I doubt Dr Kong has ever been.

Jeff Corbett contributes regular columns to the pages of the Newcastle Herald.