You Are Entitled to Nothing!

Laban: Name your wages and I will pay them.

Jacob: Don’t give me anything

A few days ago I asked a friend if he ever looked back at our childhood days longingly missing them. I asked because I sometimes look back and miss the days that I didn't need to care where the last meal I ate came from or how it came. I miss the days that my clothes were not a concern – in those days nothing really was a concern.

Though I miss those days, I have enough sense to know that they will never return. I will never experience those days because they are gone. It is OK, even gracious, to experience and enjoy the days when everything was done for you by someone else. The first type of relationship we all had was a dependent one – we depended on someone else to live. The problem comes when your dependency graduates into expecting that people must fulfill some imaginary obligations in your life.

I hear young adults sometimes hang their mediocrity and stagnancy on what some people did or did not do for them. You hear statements like, “If my father had provided enough money I would have…” or, “It is not my fault. I am where I am because they failed me.” These type of statements presupposes that people other than you have some responsibility to fulfill in your life. In a way they mean they are entitled to serve you. Nothing has kept people bound and incapable from becoming all they can become like this thought line.

It is good you get this firmly established in your heart – YOU ARE ENTITLED TO NOTHING! Nobody owes you anything. Nobody has to give or offer you any help. In your success journey you are responsible for yourself and, in effect, you are on your own.

Do not get me wrong, you need people to succeed, and, you will get people to help you succeed. What you should not have is the attitude that says: “I am entitled to help and without it I will fail”. When people choose to help you (as they certainly will), let it be the exception and not the rule of your success journey.