Entitlement and Prose

So, while I'm on this "let's post my homework" kick, I decided to post this. For my British Lit. class, we had to write a Christian-based prose on a problem in society. (We are reading discussions and responses by Thomas More and William Tyndale, for those of you literature people out there in the interwebs.) So I wrote it about entitlement, and how Americans have a false sense of entitlement. And I'm really proud of it, and I honestly believe everything I said in it. So here it is. Feel free to argue my points.

America was made to be the land of the free. Our constitution states that we are entitled to “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That statement is beyond true. We are entitled to live our lives, to be happy, and to have freedom. But our society has taken it too far. Rights don’t mean you can do whatever you want. Rights mean you are allowed to be yourself. They mean you aren’t going to be publicly stoned for committing adultery. That doesn’t mean you should. Rights mean that you are free to be a part of whatever religion you want. They don’t mean it is okay to criticize and hate others because they do not agree with your views. They mean you are allowed to think what you want. They don’t mean that you need to broadcast your opinions everywhere and ignore the feelings of others.

People have been given so much freedom, that they assign themselves false entitlements. This comes partially from freedom, partially from human pride, and partially because society as a whole has given up the idea of God. And when you give up the idea of God, you become your own god without realizing that it’s what you’re doing. And when you are your own god, you are entitled to do whatever you want. So if one person is their own personal god, and then next person is their own personal god, and so on and so forth, then one person will think they are greater than the next person, and the next person will get mad, because he knows that he is actually greater than the first person.

Entitlement can cause people to do all sorts of things. It also makes people defensive. Say a man- we’ll call him John for the purposes understanding- decides he wants to smoke weed. So John goes and finds a dealer and starts smoking weed. Eventually he gets addicted and starts growing and selling his own. Now, his girlfriend Jane notices that John has had a lot of extra cash floating around lately, and consequently finds out about his addiction and tells him he needs to stop and get help. And John says, “Who are you to tell me what to do? It’s my life, and if I want to smoke weed, I’m going to smoke weed and you can’t tell me not to.” Except he probably uses a few more expletives because he is higher than a kite. Then John and Jane break up and John eventually dies of a drug overdose. Doesn’t it sound like John takes himself a little too seriously? Doesn’t it sound like he thinks he’s god? Yes. Because he does. He just doesn’t realize it.

Maybe this example is a bit extreme. How about this: another man- his name is Bill- is unhappy at his job. He is tired of sitting in a cubicle all day staring at a computer. His pay is terrible, he doesn’t like his boss, and his co-workers are annoying. He is unhappy and restless. He wants to do something exciting. He deserves to do something more exciting. He didn’t go through two years of college for nothing. So Bill decides to quit his job and look for something better. Unfortunately, the economy is bad, and people with six years of college are having trouble getting jobs, so someone with two years has no chance. So Bill becomes unemployed, and living off of unemployment checks which pay him less than his original job did. Bill quit his job because he decided he deserved more. Did he deserve more? Well that’s not for us to decide, but from the outward looks of it, he didn’t. He simply thought he should have more because he believed himself to be important.

Here’s the truth: we are not entitled to anything. Not happiness, not comfort, not leisure. These things are gifts from God, whether we acknowledge that or not. The only thing we are entitled to is death. That’s the cold, hard truth of life. But God loves us more than that. God decided he didn’t want his people to rot in hell for eternity, so he gave us another option. He, who is entitled to everything, made himself low by sending his son to earth to die the death of a criminal. Why did Jesus have to die? To get it through our thick skulls that we are worth nothing, but he loves us anyway. God saves us, if we want him to, because he is a God of kindness and grace. Not because we deserve it. And if our society would understand that, we would be a lot better off.