ENTITLEMENT

ENTITLMENT. It’s an awful disease. Recently I read of a police officer in Daytona Beach who was reportedly fired for tormenting the folks at a local Starbucks by demanding free coffee and tea and making less-than-veiled threats against the coffee house team that if his demands weren’t met, their urgent or emergency calls would not be responded to in an appropriate fashion. Geesh. Does anyone but me remember the days when moms would use a police officer or a fireman as an example of a hero for their children? Where in the world did those days go?? This sounds like something right out of The Godfather, if you ask me. (Again, this is only reportedly—and has not been verified as factual. Unfortunately, even if this person has been persecuted unjustly, I’m willing to bet good money that such a false sense of entitlement and abuse of power does exist in our tired nation, which is the whole reason for this blog—not to press additional and unfounded blame on this police officer.)

In the world of my business, I regularly see a great deal of individuals who truly believe that they are entitled to all that the world has, simply because. But this is where the “half truth” comes into play. (Our lives are consistently pummeled by those crafty little buggers—“half truths”). Because, in actuality, we ARE all entitled to all the good that the world has to offer. However, we are entitled only to that which we truly earn and work for on this earth. It’s called the Law of the Harvest. (Dr. Steven Covey talks about this at length in a couple of his books, actually.) The good news is when we work hard, we usually end up with much more than we deserve now, and definitely later.

Some people foolishly believe that because they write out a check for $95 and sit down in a throng of thousands of individuals and listen to some superstar on how to get rich in the real estate world that they are then instantly entitled to the same level of wealth that the expert speaker now enjoys. Some people believe that simply because the cashier made the mistake of giving them back $10 too much in change that they are somehow entitled to that by a twist of fate or karma. And then there are some who believe that because they passed the physical, written, and shooting testing criteria, and now receive a paycheck of $35,000 a year as a police officer, they are entitled to break any rules of common courtesy, common law, and decency. Well, the truth is, they are entitled to behave this way. This entitlement comes to them through a gift called AGENCY. And that’s one thing that will never be taken from any individual. But more importantly is that with that same agency, we are truly empowered, beyond our present comprehension usually, to make a heck of a lot more of our lives than we thought possible—much more than even a year’s worth of free cups of coffee would ever be worth.
Hmmm… I wonder if I ever squander my Agency in the name of a misplaced or worthless sense of entitlement?

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Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.