Every now and then, I read or hear something that takes a concept I am familiar with and puts it in a new light, adds a new twist, creates more depth.
There was one from Where Should We Begin just a week ago, and today, there’s another.
It becomes a conversation about entitlement and deprivation. Deserving is the entitlement of the deprived. Deprived people don’t just say I want something, it’s OK; they need to deserve it in order to muster the energy to allow themselves to do it. So it becomes a kind of a dialogue with the deprivation. How much have I given of myself to now feel like it’s OK for me to give this to myself? It’s a complete economic system.
I listened to this several times. I’ve thought about it a lot, with more to come, I’m sure.
Deserving is the entitlement of the deprived.
Every context I could think of, whether it be directly in my life or in lives of people around me, this rang true.
I have never linked “deserve,” “entitled,” and “deprived.”
I’m reasonably sure that if, like elementary school vocabulary words, I had to use all three in a sentence, that’s not the sentence I would have come up with.
And yet … here we are.
Can you think of any examples of this that don’t satisfy the statement? I haven’t.
This changes my mindset. It gives me new perspective on some struggles I have. It gives me new perspective on struggles my clients have. Or my students. Or my family.
Deserving is the entitlement of the deprived.
Huh.