On entitlement

The term “entitlement” has gained some negative connotations in recent years, as many people, at least in North America, where I live, are abusing the opportunity to customize their circumstances to suit their particular needs, as Malcolm Gladwell describes this phenomenon in “Outliers: The Story of Success.”

I believe that a sense of entitlement is quite contagious and counter-productive in many fields. I my spheres of academic research, teaching, photography and kendo, for example, it is incredibly easy to take for granted the tremendous benefits that my work as a professor afford to my pursuit of photography, through taking me to various interesting places around the world for conferences, providing me with time and incentives to learn about the state-of-the-art imaging techniques and hardware, etc. The same can be said about, kendo, where we have a luxury of an incredible level of personalized instruction, even by Japanese standards (perhaps, especially by Japanese standards).

I agree with Jon Acuff, the author of “Do Over” that to completely reverse the sense of entitlement is only possibly by quitting one’s current occupation, pursuit, etc. in order to allow humility to work its way into the daily experience and undo the damage of taking things for granted. Without going to such an extreme, hoverer, it might be possible to at least keep the entitlement in check by consciously noticing and making use of the opportunities that surround us.