Entitlement

One of the omnipresent features of earthly life that completely mystifies me is entitlement. It's such a simple idea, yet it showers strange behavior that can only be focused through this lens. People deserve. Or so it seems. I have to take it on faith, because I don't. Normally, I can empathize with the intentions behind bad behavior, having managed a million people for a decade, acquiring a pretty authoritative sense of where people are coming from and how they got that way. But entitlement still knocks me for a loop, because I never had a taste of it. My entire life, all 63 years served to broadcast the clear and unwavering cosmic notice that I am entitled to nothing. I don't deserve. This sounds bitter and self-pitying, I know. But it's neither. Hold on, you'll see where I'm coming from in a moment. The lesson I was taught was to expect nothing. Not even a do-over, or forgiveness, or credit for past performance, or even mild benefit of the doubt. Everything, it was impressed on me…