Too many people nowadays feel entitled. They feel they are entitled to things without having to earn them. I bet you can name a handful of people around you, who feel they deserve a promotion, while they don’t really know that much, or can’t even get along with co-workers; people who feel the other drivers sitting in the same traffic should let them cut in front of them, while they don’t even try to be nice and at least wave thanks; spouses think because they worked a 40-hour week, they should be able to be treated as the king or queen, while the other spouse should be taking care of everything else at any given time.
The list go on and on. Nowadays, way too many people have this mentality. As a result, when things don’t go their way, or they feel their entitled rights are not met, they become angry, towards people around them, towards the community, they feel the world is against them. They become bitter, jealous, they feel the need to release that anger and let others know they are not happy. Friendship are ruined, families are broken.
I have seen a lot of these examples, and have been through a few of these people in my life too. Sometimes it’s hard to face the fact that I made the wrong choice, in terms of who I let into my life, and people I love and myself are taken advantage of, and hurt. But at the end of the day, it’s a fortunate thing that the true color of people would eventually show through. It may be a painful process to cut out toxic people from your life, but your future self will be grateful you did.
Chaplain Ronnie Melancon said “Show Me Your Friends and I’ll Show You Your Future”. Didn’t your parents also tell you to choose your friends wisely? I remember getting mad at my mother when I was in high school, when she warned me to stay away from this one boy, he is bad news; and instead, hang out more with this girl. I was upset with her, I remember telling her “you don’t know nothing about him, you only met him once! And you only wanted me to be with boring bookworms!” I have to admit, I really liked her as a friend. As a matter of fact, we have been friends since junior high. I was a little jealous of her to be honest. She was always one of the top ones in my class. I was too, but I was never nearly as hard-working as her. My parents always compared me with her, and I was a bit jealous. At one point of time, I felt they would rather have her as their daughter, because she was so perfect in their eyes. In fact, they had high hopes of me, hoped they were encouraging me to study harder.
I was never careful enough to choose my friends. I believe, by default, people are good people, until they prove otherwise. I get burned this way. I always sucked at saying no to anyone. I always sucked at asking for favors, or bother anyone for anything. I am too trusting. I know this, but this is who I am. I also believed in earning, not entitling. I was raised earning my money by doing dishes, taking out trash, doing other chores around the house as a kid. I believed do a good job, and take pride in what I do. I always believed in doing what I am supposed to do and more, so when people remembered me, they would say, yes, she is a good person. I never really put two and two together, I mean, my friends, and my future, until probably a month ago, from a seminar I went to. The speaker asked everyone to think of five people in our lives, that we spend most of our time with. I went through my five people list. Then he said, take the average of these five people, that’s where you will more than likely end up with. Immediately, I felt such a relief. I am nowhere at the peak of my life, probably the rock bottom in fact. But I see hope, I see where I would be based on my five people list. I feel this is meant to be. My current top fives are happy, generous, positive people, who believes doing the right thing, continuous self-development, and help others in need. I share the same values with these five people, from how to raise kids to encouraging each other rather than comparing what we have. I feel alive again. One of my close friends said to me the other day, “it’s so weird, it’s like your life just got hit by a sh!t storm, but you are actually way happier than before!” It’s true, I don’t understand that either, I guess the only difference is who I have on my top five list.
In fact, it was hard to come up with my top five. During the seminar, I kinda cheated. Instead of coming up with my top five, I came up with my top 10, or more, simply because I couldn’t really draw a line between 5th and 6th, 7th… person came to my mind. I am beyond grateful I have a large friends group. During the hard times, I have so many friends who reached out to me and offered all kinds of help they can think of. I feel I have done something right. I want to pass the value on to my kids, I want them to be good people, earn rewards rather than feel entitled. I know this is going to be a life long journey, and we all will encounter highs and lows in our lives, and sometimes it is so much easier to blame others and the society. But I am excited and grateful to have all these positive people around me and I am lucky enough to call friends, and go through this journey together.
