Entitlement

Perhaps it is a sign of the stage I am in life or maybe it has something to do with the specific people I have been noticing lately. There seems to be a disproportionately large number of people who have a misguided sense of entitlement.

It really struck me hard when one of the girls from the Atsikana Pa Ulendo school in Malawi had the opportunity to spend a few weeks studying in Canada. She was eating in the school cafeteria when people noticed her suddenly break down crying. She couldn’t understand the amount of food her fellow students were throwing in the trash bin when so many in her home country went to bed hungry. The food we waste here is obscene but despite the state of our own food supply heading toward a crisis, most of us continue to take having access to everything we want to eat for granted.

I don’t know if it is like this all over Canada but here in Alberta where employment has been easy to come by for as long as I can remember, I see many people who don’t think twice about their professional reputation. They go from job to job with little or no concern of the consequence of the trail they are leaving in their wake.

My parents and mentors have taught me things that have served me well throughout my life. The single most important thing they have taught me is that every action you choose to take has consequences and every action you choose not to take also has consequences. Nothing is for free. I think if everyone’s attitude was influenced by an awareness of this fact, their sense of entitlement would be eliminated.

“Don’t feel entitled to anything you don’t sweat and struggle for.” - Marian Wright Edelman (b. 1939)