How to avoid the Sense of Entitlement
I’ve met some talented people who were limiting themselves, because of their perception of reality. I remember speaking to a colleague who was from a small town in the Midwest and had recently relocated to Los Angeles. He told me that he did not like this city because he was having trouble finding a job. We had low unemployment and he had a college degree in a very sought after field, so I was surprised to hear about his difficulties. I asked him why he thought he was having issues finding employment? He said because they didn’t offer the pay that he wanted; he had requested 50% more than the job customarily paid. So I asked why he was asking for so much more? He said, “because I’m very smart, unique, and no one is going to find someone like me with my talents to work for them.” I asked if he had considered working for them at their entry-level rate so he could get some experience and show them how valuable he was. That way he would have more leverage and be able to request additional compensation. He said he would not consider that as an option, because he was smarter than probably all of the people interviewing him, and that he would not lower his standards to make other people happy.
From my interaction with this colleague, it was evident that he was intelligent. However, it was also evident that he had very little success because of his sense of entitlement. Americans and people under thirty-five years old tend to demonstrate the most entitled behavior. Avoiding this type of behavior would significantly increase the probability of you being successful.
Life used to be much harder, and people had to be more independent from a younger age to succeed and survive. As the world gets wealthier, it becomes more comfortable and easier for everyone. Consumerism has taken over the traditional concept of earning to get what you need. Social media and materialism are conditioning people to look for the easy way out, not to struggle, and that they’re entitled to certain privileges. Some people think they deserve things, and those who stand in their way of getting it are wrong. It’s now considered normal to be saddled with credit card debt and to live beyond your means.
Entitlement is a negative form of self-love because it hurts the people around you, and yourself in the long term. A sense of entitlement is a belief that we’re more important than the people around us. Therefore something is wrong when our needs and desires are not met. Narcissism is a mindset that develops when we don't learn that there are also other special people in this world and that we’re here to work together. Other people don’t exist merely to serve us and cater to our needs, they also have a right to their dreams.
Some of the behaviors you’d want to avoid include:
- Seeking to dominate or making yourself superior to others.
- Imposing unrealistic demands on people around you, including family, friends, employers, acquaintances, lovers, and/or employees.
- Being manipulative, abusive, vain, boastful, or egotistical towards others.
- Believing, that to be successful, you have to do so at the expense of others.
- Seeing other people as competition or threats.
- Demonstrating difficulty with negotiating or compromising.
- Believing that you deserve happiness, even if it’s at the expense of others.
- When things don’t go your way, you feel sorry for yourself and seek attention and pity from others.
- Attention and recognition seeking.
- Act out aggressively (physically/verbally abusing) or passively (gossiping, silent treatment, spreading rumors).
- Having double standards for interactions with others. For example, no one can be late, but you can. You can talk down to others, but they can’t to you.
- Taking more from relationships than you give.
- Generally offensive towards others.
- Always looking out for your needs and desires and ignoring those of others.
- Believing that you’re more important than others and that you should always come before others.
- Assuming you are smarter and more important than others. Therefore others should recognize this and treat you special.
Having a sense of entitlement will hurt your career. It will make it difficult for others to work with you, and it will not allow you to grow because you will tell yourself you already have everything and are the best.
To rid yourself of this self-destructive behavior, remind yourself that the world doesn’t owe you anything and neither do the people around you. Think of all the people on the planet. You are not entitled to more than the cleaning lady, the busboy who cleared your plates after lunch, or the bus driver who took you to work.
Actively work to get rid of any of the behaviors on the previously-mentioned list that you may be engaged in. Grow up, stop expecting people around you to cater to your needs. Change your mindset, stop depending on others to bail you out, and stop blaming others when things don’t go as you’d like. Take responsibility for everything that happens to you. Stop waiting and expecting others to do things for you. Be grateful for what you have, what others do for you, and reciprocate.
Once again practice humility, Albert Einstein said: “More the knowledge lesser the ego, lesser the knowledge more the ego. “