Entitlement — the root of all suffering

Things go wrong sometimes. Not every intricate detail in life goes exactly to plan (if there is one) and it’s definitely not comfortable nor encouraging.

Dwelling on mistakes, and not moving on, is a losing game. It’s a game in which people try to “take back” what is “theirs” instead of continuing on their own path and enjoy everything else life has to offer. They could even make use of the knowledge and experience that came out of their misfortunes. They could turn the tide and make it worth it. …Maybe that was the whole purpose.

Some times, you do everything according to the rules, you put in time, effort, your best intentions, and things still don’t turn to your favour.

Life is a journey, not one win-or-lose situation.

The actual harm is not being willing to continue and accept the circumstances. As if anybody could turn back time. Or, as if there wouldn’t be something else that would go wrong. I believe these type of problems (getting stuck into a slump, and not going forward anymore) are caused by being fast to judge and refusing to see things from another angle.

Maybe it’s just a sign that you are not doing the right thing, and that’s why you don’t have the motivation to proceed further. Are your actions aligned with your goals? Are you happy with the goals you set for yourself? Are you respecting your inner values? and are you following your dreams?

It can be hard to take an honest look back on your actions and realise that you might have drifted off a bit… but the sooner you do it, the sooner you can get back on track. And no matter how unfair or wrong you have been treated by people you trusted, circumstances which you had no control of, or bad outcomes of projects on which you dedicated yourself to, entitlement is not going to make up for any losses.

In fact, it has very negative effects:

It stops you from appreciating what you have

In economy, the whole point of making gains is to have your assets appreciate. That means that their value increases.

In actual day-to-day life, how do you plan on growing the things that matter to you, if you pay zero attention to them?

Where attention goes, energy flows.

If you’re not appreciating your current efforts and victories, you’re not creating space for them to grow and improve.

You could accomplish EVERYTHING you have striven for and you could win the whole world, but if you don’t acknowledge it, it is all in vain.

This comes out of being too egotistical and perfectionist. I know I struggled with this problem. It is a problem. And I see people around me struggle with this worse than I do.

No matter what skills you gain and what you learn, if you don’t learn to evaluate yourself and put your skills and knowledge to good use… it is useless, for you and everyone else. You are NOT the best judge of yourself. Most people don’t even give themselves a chance.

It Burdens You

Setting impossibly high standards and unreachable goals is a recipe for disaster. You need discipline in order to make small, confortable steps and patience to get to see those small steps merge into one big, glorious journey that you’d be proud of.

And setting Goals that challenge you is a good way to go. But setting unrealistic expectations just to have an excuse that “you tried” helps nobody.

You might even feel that you are underachieving, that work is scary and unapproachable and even “not worth it”. The whole idea is to integrate your work in your day-to-day life, not to make it an unconfortable out-of-the-ordinary effort.

There’s no bigger regret than knowing that you were fully capable of doing something and that you didn’t even try.

Society demonises failure constantly. As if “failure” itself is an object or a disease that you should avoid. Quite the opposite…

Usually the people who have the most success are the people who also failed the most. Think of famous piano musicians like Mozart. He must have spent hours upon hours just playing around with his piano, trying new things, consulting theory, analysing what other pianists are doing and what his audience would enjoy.

He must have been experimenting constantly and failing and getting angry constantly. People who play video games know perfectly well what it means to lose and get angry. But they also know what it means to persist and finally achieve the goal. The struggle and “failures” and time spent on that goal is what makes the victory so good. That and the fact that they have improved on their skill.

It could be any type of victory. It could ve any type of skill. They ALL require practice.

It Only Aggravates

Feeling entitled to something is a burden that chews on your patience and inner piece. It serves no other purpose than giving you a sense of ego.

If you feel entitled to something that you’re lacking (respect, achievement, career/business success) you basically have 2 course of action:

Investigating it and setting things straight

Problems don’t appear for no reason. Maybe you were working with the wrong people (there is no shortage of people on the planet, and most of us have internet, so please don’t worry about that! ). Maybe your schedule doesn’t work for you. Maybe you have some issue that is holding you back, that you never took the time to think about and make peace with it.

The thing is, you have to get involved. Sometimes it sucks and sometimes you get your heart broken. If it were easy it wouldn’t be an adventure. And if it were easy, there still would have been a most-less-pleasant part which hou could avoid until it becomes scary. And if it were easy you might not give it that much attention or meaning.

It is what it is. It’s your life. Nurture it! Grow it! What else did you have planned for it?

and the second option is…

Let things get worse until they become unbearable

Dan Peña said that people act in life out of “inspiration or desperation”.

I’d go with inspiration each time. I make my own mistakes so I don’t make the best decisions all the time… But whatever decision you might make, mistakes out of acting from inspiration are good mistakes to make (as long as they are not exorbitantly costly).

But if you act out of desperation, the best outcome is fixing something that you shouldn’t have broken. It kinda takes the pleasure out of achieving…

What next?

We can do this exercise together. Take a piece of paper and a pen. Now, write down your tasks. Now, write down the worst possible outcome if you fail at all of them. And then write the best situation possible that comes out of achieving each and every one of your current tasks, even if it seems impossible to achieve.

You’re real outcome is going to be somewhere in the middle. Now set a priority for each of your tasks (do the easy ones first so they get you up and running).

The point of this exercise is to organise your tasks into manageable chunks. Most of the time you don’t need quick fixes; you need to stop being so greedy with your “time” and put some time and effort towards you goals.

At least fail!

Failing is not that bad. Not even trying though… that is where regret comes from.