Feeling Entitled?

The word is thrown around quite a bit these days. Many older individuals will call younger people entitled over the way they act. Younger individuals might try to call out the sense of entitlement in their older counterparts. Even whole sections of government deal with the idea. But the reality is that everyone struggles to some degree with the feeling of entitlement. Because of sin, and its inherent focus on the self, there will always be a wrestling with feeling entitled in a person. The heart change wrought by surrender to Christ will feel deeply with pulling out the weeds of entitlement. It is easy to feel like you are not entitled in any way. After all, you have earned your spot through hard work and lots of hours. But, just for fun, here are several signs you are dealing with entitlement.

Special Treatment

The heart of feeling entitled is believing you deserve some sort of special treatment. Your position, your power, your place, etc… have all earned you some sort of favor amongst the commoners. These special things are owed to you for all that you have done for them. It can take all sorts of forms from expecting certain greetings, opportunities, or even more tangible things like parking spots and private bathrooms. Entitlement regularly shows its face in the expectation of things above and beyond just for yourself and not others.

Lack of Gratitude

Along with special treatment there creeps in a lack of thankfulness. You don’t respond to things anymore with a feeling of gratitude. Things are expected and deserved. You don’t appreciate the people and things around you because they are becoming mere objects to your advancement. Have you stopped saying, “thank you” to people? Do you get annoyed when someone doesn’t recognize you, or you stature in the organization? Are you demanding only green Skittles in the candy dish? Gratitude begins with the acknowledgement that no one really deserves anything.

Unaccountable

Another sign is that you begin to shun accountability structures. You feel above them. They are a hindrance to your accomplishments. Maybe those rules only apply to those below you, or it is okay for you to act a certain way but no one else can. You fail to face consequences for your decisions, or actions. Or more, you shift blame for those things to others beside yourself. Surely you can’t be the one in the wrong. That other person made you feel that way so it is their fault. You stop apologizing for your outbursts and attitudes. You no longer have a framework of accountability around you. Failure is right around the corner.

Self-justification

The partner of being unaccountable is self-justification. Peas and carrots, perhaps? To be unaccountable you, generally, have to maintain self-justifying behavior. You have the right to behave that way because of your status. Maybe people just don’t really understand the amount of pressure you are under. A little bit of fudging won’t hurt anyone. If you can come with all the reasons why it is okay for you to do it when you call it sin in others then you have a self-justification problem.

Untrustworthy

A final sign of entitlement is that you have a trust problem. People stop trusting you. Your attitude and behavior becomes demanding of others, almost abusive in many ways, if they don’t do what you expect or think. And it isn’t that you can’t be trusted to keep a secret anymore, but the consistent waffling back and forth on decisions. Your entitlement will push you to develop anxiety and fear about decisions and loss of power. You become suspicious of others and their motives. You can’t be trusted to be consistent and present with the team anymore. It is definitely a sad place to be.

Perhaps, it could be stated that the key to conquering entitlement is humility. It gets a pretty bad rap out there at times, but humility is giving credit where it is rightly due. To God. Humility recognizes that wherever you are, you are there by the grace of God only. So do it all to His glory rather than your own. But the more you travel up the ladder of worldly success the greater challenge it can be to stave of entitlement. Again, everyone struggles with aspects of entitlement. It is a self-centered mentality and sin is all about self-centeredness. Keep yourself in proper perspective. Focus on trusting God and His story rather than your own.Lean on His grace and not your own self-justification. Walk humbly. It is the gift of God.