"Really? What did I do to deserve that?"
What could I possibly have done to deserve a lipstick? Or a car? Was it something I did or something I said? (And, if I do "deserve" it, why do I still have to pay for it?)
Any gamer will be able to tell you that you earn something by doing something. No one gets the prize by doing nothing in particular.
It's even more depressing when you get some of the creepier ads on web pages trying to tell you you've "earned" something or "deserve" something. Some time ago, an ad on a page I was using told me I "deserved" a sexy Russian bride. I really want to know what I did to deserve that, and how I can avoid doing it again.
And yet, when you look at a lot of what people say these days (especially when interacting with businesses and services), it seems we've come to believe we deserve a lot of things. I personally blame the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
We invented this idea called "Rights" - this belief that we are entitled to something because we live and are human. This is all well and good, and I'm not saying for a moment that we shouldn't have rights - but I think we need to remember from time to time that they don't actually exist and we aren't actually entitled to them. We made them up, and we give them to each other because we choose to.
"Rights" aren't naturally our due, and we aren't automatically entitled to them, as much as we might think we are.
There's no tangible thing that makes it necessary to give someone a fair trial. It's a lovely idea and I'm glad we've decided that it is necessary, but any dictatorship will be able to show you that it's entirely arbitrary.
In our lovely, non-dictatorship society, we're so used to having "Rights" that we start feeling entitled to things that were never in any charter. This spills over into our interactions with each other and our society, and then advertisers come along and fuel our sense of entitlement even more...
And I think it would do us all some good every now and then to stop and realise "Nobody owes me anything - if I haven't done something to earn it, then I don't deserve it."
We need to do this because it's very hard for gratitude and entitlement to fit in the same space in our heads. When we feel we are owed something - that we're just worth it - we don't realise how wonderful it is to be able to have these things at all.
No, I don't deserve a lipstick. And isn't it fantastic that I have enough disposable income to be able to buy something so completely pointless?*
No, I'm not entitled to "good service" from the person serving me, so if I get anything above and beyond "adequate service" I should enjoy it as the gift that it is.
How much of what upsets us in our interactions with other people and organisations comes from a subconscious belief that we were owed something better, and we "deserve" to have something we don't have?
How much happier would we be if we expected less and appreciated more of what we get out of life?
*And if I don't have the disposable income, then I really don't deserve it.
