entitlement

(I’m sure I am not alone in feeling this way) My biggest pet peeve is when people feel entitled to do as they please without any regard for anyone else. Oh you think you’re more deserving of some particular reward or benefit — oh you think you are better than that guy over there?From cutting in lines to taking way more than their share to just straight up being rude. My sister has a theory that we are raising a society of children to be selfish. She and I argued about this a bit. I said selfishness is appropriate when you are in your young adulthood (16-28) as you are trying to find yourself. I don’t think we all need to be completely egotistic but we should be looking out for ourselves because if we choose to procreate then we need to be able to support not only ourselves but our progeny. She was less sympathetic. However she was offering problems without solutions. How do we teach children to not become Ass holes? When our society and culture focus on the importance of property, ownership, and pride, praising confidence and competition, how do you teach compassion, selflessness and consideration?

Jessica, my sister, will be the first to tell you that I was a bratty kid. Actually, I’m sure my two older brothers and her would all race to be the first to say that. Granted, somewhere down the line I lost that mentality or at least, I would like to think I did. Eventually it all caught up with me and looking back I’m not always happy with the memory of myself. I’m not going to beat myself up too much about it because there is no use stressing about the past that you can do nothing about. However, I try to use the past as a learning place. What happened to me? Do I still carry an overwhelming sense of entitlement that someone else is ranting about on their blog?

I’ve been producing a short film which has 15 child actors. Needless to say, there has been a lot of energy on set. I took one morning off and left the set to the other producer so that I could recoup. When I came to set later that day, the other producer had informed me that some of the kids have found our snack stash and proceeded to take all the fruit snacks. I was appalled. They ended up taking something like 80 fruit snacks. Granted the snacks were there for them to eat during the production. We want them to feel comfortable. However, those snacks were for the cast AND crew. I didn’t understand why any kid would go through a bunch of cabinets and drawers and finally find some hidden snacks and take them. We were trying to ration them for the entire week. AND they had just had lunch and there were already snacks out. I ended up giving a mother-of-a-speech about respect and courtesy and what it means to steal something. I doubt I made it through to any of 15. The guilty ones lied to my face about it and the guilty by association ones gave up the guilty ones like it was nothing. *SIgh* Now I’m probably going to have to tell their mothers that their sons are sociopaths.

I was driving downtown the other day and as I pulled up to the light I noticed something very strange: I was surrounded on all sides by Lexuses. They varied by regular Lexus Sedans to a convertible to a couple “luxury utility” vehicles (which don’t even get me going on that name, you know because here is the luxury in utility). I looked further and saw a Hummer. Before I go on I should back track. I don’t own a car. I’m not against them or anything, on the contrary, I like cars and see a purpose in them. I even use to be a pizza delivery girl for a major pizza company. Five years ago some jack ass hit me because he was changing cds while he was driving. He destroyed my car, some of the muscle/tissue in my shoulders and my booming career as a pizza delivery girl. Since, I have been car-less. I currently share a car with my mom who lives in San Antonio. It’s a modest 2006 Ford Escort with four cylinders, automatic locks, a tape player in a dirty grayish-brown color. I bike, ride the bus and get rides from my friends. I have a simple life but I’m happy. When I see all these people surrounding me with their flaunted ridiculous wealth, it can get disgusting. I want to think that Mr. Johnson in the car over works really hard and saved and saved for his Lexus SC10. But is that 60k+ car necessary?

It is known that Gandhi gave to his grandson Arun Gandhi some life lessons before he was assassinated. He wrote it on a piece of paper.

The 7 blunders of the world:

• Wealth without work
• Pleasure without conscience
• Knowledge without character
• Commerce without morality
• Science without humanity
• Worship without sacrifice
• Politics without principle

I fully believe in this. It all comes down to everyone’s shit sinks. No one is any better than anyone else. I don’t care if you have a PhD in Omniscience, you are going to die just like that junkie in the ally behind the liquor store. Historically, mostly all cultures on earth have created different kinds of cast systems to categorize people, most of the time valuing some higher than others. Why do humans have this tendency? I can’t wrap my mind around it.