I'm the luckiest man alive

I'm the luckiest man alive, and I'll tell you why. I was born in Thailand, and my mom came from a very poor family of ten. She grew up in Thailand's countryside and was so poor that during middle school lunch break, she had to hide behind a large tree so no one would see that she didn't have lunch.

I have a brother and a half-sister. We all grew up in different families. My sister was with her dad's family. My brother was with our dad's family. I stayed with my mom, who met a Dutch man. This Dutch man became my stepfather and had been in my life before I celebrated my first birthday.

Because of my stepdad, we moved to the Netherlands when I was five. My siblings couldn't join us, as my parents didn't have enough money to bring all three children. So, I was the only one who had the opportunity to get a top-class education. Of the three children, I'm the only one to graduate from university.

Fast forward to today. Now, I'm a homeowner of a typical Dutch house along a canal. Okay, it's not in Amsterdam, but still, it's a freaking huge house. I'm a homeowner largely because of two reasons that my wife-to-be, Mandy, made possible. She bought a house when she was 23, which we could sell to finance our new house. But the surplus value was not enough to finance our dream home.

The second reason is because of her personality. A couple of years ago, she met a couple who have kids that already left the house. Since that meeting, we have had regular contact with this couple. And they are the ones who happen to have financially helped us to secure the house. We still can't believe that this worked.

We both feel incredibly grateful to be the owners of such a place that we can call our palace. I'm sure Mandy feels lucky, but I think I'm even more lucky than her. I'm convinced that luck is not totally random and luck can be positively influenced. However, this amount of luck is almost impossible. Therefore, I must be one of the luckiest men alive. I'll go pinch myself and hope it's not a dream.