Word or term commentary

I have a feeling about some use of words or terms that is hard to describe and in my opinion, are misrepresented. I know you can argue against my point if you take the literal application that I am about to refer, yet I hope you realize I am trying to make a point about some aspects of our society.

The first word is entitlement. And that word is thrown around quite a bit lately. The alt right and so called very conservative will say all the welfare recipients feel they are entitled to their benefits. Or you have people who say the rich feel entitled. And there are many other examples you might think. So, which is it and who is it. In the cases I am trying to make my point I will say neither. Truly there are people who you want to punch in the nose because you can tell they do feel entitled. There is no mistaking those people.

For the people who get called entitled in the general sense though I feel we need a new word. To feel entitled you must understand where you arrived to get there. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor you exude that feeling to others and well the rest of us should punch you in the nose.

The generalities though apply to large swaths of people by ignorance do not know they exhibit entitlement. The 19-year-old woman with one or two children receiving aid does not feel entitled. In fact, the problem is she knows no other way. Many were brought up in this way of life. Multi-generational poverty has taught them no other option. Or the rich kids running about town expecting everything to drop in their lap without showing a morsel of gratitude are in the same level of ignorance. Their whole life has been handed to them and they just do not understand others. This isn’t their fault. We are now dealing with multi-generational lack of empathy.

I could go on about this, yet I do not want to turn this into a lecture. I see these misapplications of the term as a problem we have that shows we are having a hard time addressing who we are as a society. By no means do I feel this is a root problem. This is more of a symptom of lack of understanding of others. And then more importantly how do we turn around the behavior and beliefs, so the various groups can interact better within society.

The other word or term is the concept of someone being deserving. I think we throw that term around too much and in my opinion incorrectly in many situations. Again, this does not apply completely, yet when is someone truly deserving versus the need to create a new word or application to better identify what a person should receive.

And explaining this idea is not going to seem straight forward, you need to broaden how you approach my point. Here is a made-up example to give you an idea. I do not want you to think I have a negative feel about the idea that some people are deserving, but in what cases and how can we better approach defining who is deserving

So, let’s say someone has gone through many trials and tribulations and for a long period of time. Maybe one family member had cancer and died, there was loss of income that ruined the family, their house experienced a large disaster or was flooded in a storm, or any other combination of events that make life miserable for a stretch of time. And then something good happens such as they inherit a large amount of money or win the lottery. People will say that person deserved that money. And I say really. Do not get me wrong I am very happy for that person, maybe envious to be truthful. I am glad they did receive the blessing to help them get over the tragedies. Yet are they deserving?

Or how about team hasn’t won a championship in a long time and finally win. People will say the city is deserving or the fans are deserving or the team itself is deserving of that championship. Are they? Again, I do not want to take away anything from them or the victory, yet how are we applying deserving.

And correctly you can say if someone works hard, perseveres, puts in the long hours etc, well then shouldn’t the team be deserving and by default all the fans who supported them year after year shouldn’t they deserve to win. Truthfully, I do not know. If it is my team, I am extremely happy and may feel we deserved it. Shot I may feel we deserved winning if I won a softball league tournament. And rightfully so you can say they do deserve it whether it was a world championship or the softball league championship. Yet many times we apply the term deserving to situations that may not live up to its true definition.

These are just two words that started bugging me recently and I just wanted to discuss them. Overall most people have a good grasp of their meanings, yet to me it seems we bandy them about too easily at times without truly understanding how we are applying them. This again, shows symptoms of problems in our society that have deep rooted causes. And the causes are the misunderstanding of others and where they originate. Obviously, there is much more, yet I wanted to throw some thoughts out for you and if you have an opinion or want to carry this further please let me know.

I was going to write more on the story, yet this took more time than I thought and like I said before I could go on forever. Instead the Cowboy game is about to start and we are playing Washington and even though it isn’t the 1970’s rivalry it use to be, I gotta go. Cheers