Today I write about happiness, entitlement, achievement and meaning. How do they all connect?
A guest came to visit a Saskatchewan farmer for the first time at his farm. As the visitor took in the expanse of billowing wheat fields that stretched out from the well-maintained family home and farm buildings, he commented to the farmer, “God has been good to you.” The farmer replied with a smile, “He certainly has…but you should have seen the place when he was managing it by himself.”
A big-city businessman who proposed we work together on a deal took me out for lunch to his expensive and exclusive golf club. He gleefully went on and on about how well he had done. His oft-repeated mantra was, “I don’t want it all; I just want my share.” It was quickly apparent that the “share” he was entitled to was substantial.
I pulled back when I sensed his willingness to bully and cheat to get what he wanted, while staying just within the law. He became abusive to me when I did not go along with him on something.
He was late for our final meeting because some high-end ($700k and up) condominiums had gone on sale that morning for a yet-to-be-built high-rise project, and he had to wait in line for his speculative purchase. He burst in with “I grabbed three,” and he went on to repeat his mantra. That was right before a major real estate correction. I never did hear how he faired.
Both the farmer and the businessman were intelligent and had achievements. Both were apparently happy. Why was the businessman so imbued with a sense of entitlement?
Let’s turn the clock back to when each of them was about 8 years old. I speculate the parents of each boy wanted their son to be happy, and each recognized their son to have good native intelligence. Both kids were optimistic, because all kids start out that way.
The parents of the future farmer had been teaching their son to develop his brainpower, work hard to overcome challenges and to stay optimistic in the face of obstacles. “My son figures out what to do when things don’t go his way and manages to stay positive.”
The other parents praised their son for his obvious intelligence. He should be able to do just about anything well. “My son is a brain. He’s always successful.”
When parents praise their children’s intelligence, the children tend to develop a fixed mindset about being able to do anything well, a sense of entitlement, and a right to be happy. Self esteem of children is based on a sense of entitlement. When they run into things they can’t handle, like a course that’s to hard or a job task they don’t understand, they are more prone than other children to cheat, lie or steal to avoid failure.
On the other hand, when parents encourage their children to develop their brainpower, the children’s mindset tends to be more fluid. It is up to them to learn how to get through the hard stuff and keep going.
The cult of happiness seems to be rooted in a sense of entitlement. When an economic downturn takes away what some thought they were entitled to, we hear bitter cries of blame and doom. “My right to happiness has been violated.”
Those not affected by entitlement are still experiencing positive emotions, are engaged in life and find their lives to be meaningful, even though they may have to do some belt tightening. Come to think of it, that is how Dr. Martin Seligman, who pioneered modern positive psychology, defines authentic happiness.
PDF 
Categories: 
Tags: 
Neill,
I enjoyed this post very much. Dr. Seligman’s work in the area of learned optimism is at the very heart of the work that I’ve been doing for 14 years.
I’m pleased to see your focus on entitlement in this post – it’s so important.
There seems to be some confusion ‘out there’ about the difference between entitlement and expectation.
An entitlement mentality usually brings with it anger, selfishness and a general lack of personal accountability for causing what we want. This state of mind brings with it the feeling that we’ve already worked hard enough, it’s owed to us – which is when we get “creative” about how we obtain whatever we feel we are entitled to. There is a general lack of gratitude when we’re in this state, and we’re more than ready to blame others when things don’t go our way.
Having positive expectations on the other hand can get us what we want in our lives, but with a completely different underlying spirit. Having positive expectations for our lives is essential for us to be able to achieve the lives we desire, because our physiology is attached to what we think about. In other words, if we expect things to go well, we’re more likely to do the things, and think the things that are necessary to have things work out well. Of course the opposite is also true – if we expect things to not go well…
Having positive expectations fuels us, which is usually when hard work kicks in. We find the ways, we find the resources, we invent the solutions to make something come to fruition. Hard work doesn’t come without taking personal accountability – and when personal accountability and hard work are present, gratitude quickly follows.
Again, great post, thanks for putting it ‘out there!’
Lauri
Lauri, thank you for weighing in on this discussion. Some of the most negative, bitter people I have known have been among those with a strong sense of entitlement. There has been little evidence of gratitude and many signs of resentment towards their benefactors.
On the other hand, the happiest, most positive people I have known seemed to have come from a place of gratitude and appreciation of life regardless of whether their high expectations from life were being fulfilled at the time.
Neill
Anyone who thinks that farm boys don’t have a overblown sense of entitlement, aren’t bullies, and aren’t abusive have never gone through the process of settling an estate after the farm parents have died. That is when sisters an non-farm heirs find out just what it is like to have a farmer brother who expects to get it all and get it now.
FMV rents??? Hell no. They should get to rent family land at 35% of FMV. Involvement by non-farm heirs? Hell no. They should manage everything and the others can’t ask any questions. Move out of the farm house and let the next generation have the homestead. Hell no? Why pass on the family homestead to the next generation of farmers when it saves you $800 per month. Nope, they’ll never move into their own retirement home. After all, those city folk brothers and sisters should be starting their sons farming.
How would I know? I have a farmboy brother.