I am the best result I know – of a genetic socioeconomic lottery.
Born into a family that loved me immensely, inculcated the right value system, could afford quality educated, provided food and shelter.
Nothing even remotely as bad as most people in the world have. All this, for no hard work on my part.
Lottery, as I called it.
Something I should have been grateful about.
Just that I wasn’t. For the longest time in my life.
Just because I worked hard, and thought right, I felt the world owed me results.
I felt I deserved more.
Not because others felt so. Because I thought I was entitled to it.
It was only much later and through a set of life-altering experiences, that I realized entitlement to be the worst enemy of success.
And I have worked hard since then to abolish this sense from within.
And as I am learning about what’s working, what is not, and more importantly why do we behave the way we do when it comes to entitlement, I find myself applying these learnings to how I act as a parent
If there was only one lesson that Vidur could take from me, it would be
Grateful for everything. Entitled to nothing.
Can we say that entitlement can be earned through the rigorous process of life. Just like a diamond, Its black but when it is polished, it is grateful to the human who did it and at the end it has to be entitled to someone who is worth that effort.
Your thoughts do provoke a sudden depth which is needed to understand life and the people who live in it.
This is so thought provoking and deep! Thanks for sharing.
It is so natural for this feeling of entitlement to crop while we work hard following our passion and chasing our goals.At the same time it is really admirable that you have been working hard to abolish this sense from within.I say this because most of us fall in love with this temporary entitlement and then delve in pride.
Being grateful for everything without being entitled to anything is probably the best lesson you can give to Vidur.
However Mr.Warikoo,no matter what lesson you try to teach until he too goes through his own set of life altering experiences,it will be little difficult for him to apply it.
I think the best way to be grateful for everything is to make him dream big, and let him fall in love with the chase. I feel grateful for everything I have in my life because I realise how much love, effort and sacrifice goes into making something a success. I value each and every input that I receive from anyone.
I think the sense of entitlement does not stay up for long once you realise the negative impact it can create on your behaviour. I see it as a part of the ego, which makes us believe ‘I’ am supreme. ‘I’ deserve more. I have found that If you would keep on draining out every ounce of entitlement, that will hurt your growth.
Once the egotistical ‘I’ is suppressed the motivational ‘I’ needs to take birth which is very healthy for our self esteem and our growth.