Entitlement & Expectations

Complain, complain, complain. Whine, whine, whine.

 

Don’t we hear enough of this on social media? Why is that?

 

Don’t we live in an age of abundance? You’re flooded with choices, resources, opportunities, and more, and yet a society has never whined so much as ours.

 

How do we explain this?

 

• Entitlement

• Expectation

 

Entitlement is the belief that “one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.”

 

Do you know what inherently means? It means that something exists as “a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.”

 

People have to come to believe that they deserve privileges and special treatment from others, from society, and from institutions, BECAUSE of a permanent attribute within themselves.

 

They feel they are entitled to a life of ease and without suffering.

Expectation is the STRONG belief that something WILL happen.

 

Just the fact that people have so much expectation demonstrates just how easy we’ve got it, and yet, people complain even more.

 

For example, try to imagine what the average person received from a king during the Middle Ages. Do you think they expected anything more than oppression, taxation, or the confiscation of their property?

 

Therefore, the fact that we complain as much as we do is the only proof you need that we have it better than any generation or society ever has. Our abundance and luxury has taught us to expect more rather than induce greater thankfulness.

 

We express more dissatisfaction than we do gratefulness. We’re a nation of brats.

 

Does that mean we should live without any expectations?

 

Your expectations should be directed at yourself and not your environment.

 

Your environment should receive gratitude. Why? Because you’re sustained by it, yet you had nothing to do with it.

 

But what if your circumstances are bad? Doesn’t matter. Be grateful there are resources you can use to get out of where you are. Your expectations must be focused on you.

 

The challenge with placing expectations only on yourself is that you can easily let yourself down. So long as you remember that you’re in a process—and no one is perfect—you can continue to move forward.