Entitlement: That Sneaky Bastard

It took me a long time (and a GREAT therapist) to fully understand the notion of entitlement, and honestly future Kristi will probably think present day Kristi is full of shit.  She usually does. But the goal is to just keep getting a little bit better (age like a fine wine) and a little bit wiser.  So I think that if I look back and say "you were full of shit" it actually means I'm moving in the right direction.  This is one of those topics I believe I'll only understand and unravel more and more as I age, but for now a few thoughts on entitlement.

Classic (usually easy to spot) Entitlement Example:  I have an ex boyfriend who spent his entire life living off of his parents.  When we met he was closer to 40 than 30, living in his dads house rent free (as he had since college).  Literally some days he did not have one dollar to his name and yet felt no remorse, guilt or shame about being a non stop financial drain on everyone around him.  He was very generous with what he did have believing that what's mine is yours, so then also what's yours is mine.  He wasn't a bad guy, he was incredibly kind to me and affectionate, patient, interesting, engaging -  but he could not hold down a job, he had little interest in work or doing anything hard or un-fun (like paying bills).  He did not pay child support, he in fact did not feel obligated to pay child support.  He freely asked me to pay for everything and without limit:  his daughters school clothes, date nights, food, gas for his car, cigarettes, a vacation, a large chuck of change to finance his catering career....that he never worked at. Ever. His parents still paid for all his bills and when his car finally broke down it was his mom that got the loan for the repairs and it was I who was expected to rearrange my schedule so that I could take him to and from work and his daughter to and from school.  He had been sent to all the best private schools, provided with all the extra circulars, graduated honors from a top university and yet he had no ambition and no desire to adult.  He thought he was perfect just the way he was.  In fact when I finally broke it off, my last memory of him is his grown ass mantrum as he walked down my driveway shouting at me all of his amazing attributes.  (I get it, you read Dante's Inferno, I read The Notebook- now get a mother fucking job!) He was in utter disbelief that I was doing this - that this was happening to him.

*Now, why I dated a man for nearly a year who couldn't adult and broke every boundary I had estabolished  for myself - that's for another day, but there were no victims here only 2 unhealthy mindsets.

Not so easy to spot entitlement: When Victimhood Leads to Entitlement

The book that I'm reading right now, (and that's provoking a lot of these thoughts and trips down memory lane) is The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck, and the author defines entitlement in one of two ways:

1. I'm awesome and the rest of you all suck, so I deserve special treatment
2. I suck and the rest of you are all awesome, so I deserve special treatment

"Opposite mindset on the outside, but the same selfish creamy core in the middle." -Mark Manson

My take away in reflecting on my path, is the idea that something bad happened to me and that makes me special.  You believe or live in a way that says, your pain/experience is unique,no one else has felt pain or stress like this before and that your pain gives you license to act or live in a way that's unhealthy.  This belief or lifestyle then reinforces that you are a victim, which reinforces your unhealthy thoughts, which lead to more unhealthy actions and none of this is within your control.  Everyone needs to just accept that 'this is me' - because you know, you're special or damaged or hurting or misunderstood or something...

Victimhood Entitlement Example: Me  

Something bad happened to me, which made me feel all the feels and then I didn't want to feel all the feels anymore - it was too intense.  So I just buried my pain which eventually led to feeling angry, angsty and emotionally charge all the time - a bit of a bitch and definitely selfish.  I was rude and defiant to my parents, because fuck you I'm in pain so I'll do what I want.  I did all the drugs, because fuck you I'm in pain so I'll so what I want.  I dated many of (not all of) the wrong guys, because fuck you I'm in pain so I'll do what I want.  I married and then divorced one of the wrong guys because fuck you my pain is driving this train and my pain made me do it.  I had zero accountability for my actions or my emotions - I was only on defense, only ever reacting, and doing so without any personal responsibility.  Even though on the surface I talked about "surviving" I was stuck in a perpetual loop of feeling like, and then acting like, a victim.  I was stuck believing my pain was special or unique and so I was entitled to act how I wanted to because feeling this pain was too great a burden for you to ask of me.  If you could just feel how I felt you'd of known that and you'd of understood I was doing the best I could.  *cough, cough, bullshit!* All of my choices for years where driven by either chasing cheap thrills or avoidance of pain. Usually both at the same time, I multitask like a beast!  Does it bring me joy? Does it numb my pain? Yes? Great, then cut me up another line, pass me another cookie, pour me another drink, buy me another new outfit, bring home another guy.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Something I ask my toddler a lot is: "will what you're doing right now bring you closer to or further from a consequence?  Well, for maybe half of my life all of my choices brought me closer to rather than further from - I was a mess and I was deeply unhappy.  Not much of a survivor I'd say.

Somewhere right around turning 30 two things happened that I think made a crucial shift for me.

My Turning Point

1. I very simply realized everyone has their shit! Everyone.  Certainly what life hurls at us isn't all weighted the same - the loss of a child or a spouse is arguably far more devastating than say the loss of a job.  However, when we begin ranking whose shit is worse or more damaging (even just within our own mind) it's not just unhealthy it's useless. It's all relative in regards to your personal experiences and perspective.  If your shit is the worst thing to ever happen to you then that is just as terrible and devestating as someone else's shit that is the worst thing to ever happen to them.  You're both left devastated, essentially leveling the playing field.  You both have to figure out how, or if you even want to cope and move forward.  I (with admittedly zero clinical experience or psychological education other than my own therapy, so take my options as just that, opinions) believe that coping skills are learned out in the field.  You learn how to handle shit when shit is handed to you, or you learn how to avoid shit when shit is handed to you.  It's one or the other.   Then the next time, when new shit is thrown your way, you go -  "oh, I remember how to handle shit" and you use your new skill.  But this time it doesn't work, so you have to chose to try something new or chose to avoid handeling the shit.   Now the next shit is thrown your way you go "Oh, I have multiple tools for handling  shit".  Or if you've been avoiding it, which is still a choice and an action, then you pile more shit onto your ever growing shit pile.  This pile doesn't just go away though, it will grow and grow until eventually it's forced to eat away at you clearing real estate to support your sprawling pile of shit.  And so this cycle repeats itself for your entire life!!!  Anyone who is waiting until the skies part and the clouds clear to "be happy" will be very disappointed in life.  You're going to have plenty of blue skies, but then just like that the storm clouds will roll back in and you'd better be prepared to either stand in the rain or open up your umbrella.  THIS is how we learn to deal - by actually doing it.  No one is special here and gets to line-hop this part of life.  Deep, gut wrenching, agonizing pain and extreme stress are emotions we will all experience - over and over.  It's just part of the design.  Life is easier when we accept and make peace with this.  You don't always get a say in what life throws at you but you ALWAYS get a say in how you react to it, IF you react to it and what you allow yourself to learn from it as you move forward.  That part is on you.


2. I began to focus on gratitude and I used this practice to stop perseverating and to shift my values.  Whatever emotional high I was chasing evolved as I did.  In my 20's it was drugs and boys.  In my late 20's when I had a solid income it was stuff.  I bought a lot of stuff, and it always made me feel good...and then it didn't, so I'd go out and buy more stuff.  My second greatest vice during this time: wallowing.  I could sit for a week at a time listening to David Gray, smoking pot, writing alone in my house just entertaining all my misery and self loathing and self pity.  I wasn't sorting through my pain, just swimming around it it for some kind of sadistic fun.  Look how special and tortured and sad I am...this is why I make so many bad choices.  This is why bad things happen to me.  I may not have expressed this outwardly, but if I really listened to myself, if I was really honest then yes, I felt entitled to be miserable.  I felt that I had earned the right to be like this.  I felt like a victim over and over - nothing was ever really my fault and everything happening was out of my control.  Maybe God was punishing me or maybe God just didn't exist, but in no way could I be bringing this shit storm upon myself.  That was ludicrous! Even that nice, interesting, entitled boyfriend of mine - how could the universes finally allow me to meet someone so great who just couldn't adult?  I must be destined for the long and rocky road in life.

Around this time I was writing grad papers for a friend of mine for fun (I know.  Don't worry, she was in charge of puncuation) and the book the class was studying was Franklin Covey's 7 Habit's.  I remember being inspired by the questions he was asking you to ask of yourself and so for the first time ever I used his tools and began to practice the action of picking my thoughts.  I figured what's the worst that could happen? I activly tried to change the way I spoke to myself, I tried to change the dialogue I had within my own head and I wanted to focus on the places in my life where I was doing a good job.  I also wanted to change the measures I used for defining myself.  Mark Manson calls a similar process a shift in values, evaluating and then seeking to change what you chose to give a fuck about.  When I was able to begin appreciating and acknowledging the worthwhile parts of myself and my life,  and really evaluate the fucks I was giving it opened up the door to then evaluate and change the metrics that I used to measure my own success.  Previously I felt good about my self if say, I had a boyfriend who felt good about me.  (Have you ever only seen yourself through the reflection of someone else's eyes? Yeah dude - super shitty way to function.  That's how you end up with a starter marriage - but I digress.)  I would measure myself by whether or not I was winning at work or if I was able to buy what I wanted and when or if I weighed a certain amount or clocked in enough gym time.  These were only some of the unhealthy values I used for myself and just the beginning of my long process, and still active desier to change them.

So what happened then?

I began to finally, and constructively, not just feel my own pain but sort through it and move past it.  I began to hold myself accountable for my thoughts, my emotions, my reactions and then ultimatly my own actions.  This didn't magically made me some kind of mental wizard or Mother Theresa- but when I flew off the handle or responded based solely on emotion I took ownership of that and I tried to do it better the next time.  For the first time ever I sat and kind of autopsied my past choices and it was in dissecting these choices (and their end results) that I continued to learn a lot about how I processed, the values I defined myself by and if it was healthy.  Spoiler: It was not.  This process, while vital to shifting values and fucks given, didn't feel very good.  I'd been a bit of a dick for a really long time and I had to own that.  I ended a marriage, which devastated someone, and one of the many reasons we didn't work out was that I had been functioning solely in "does it feel good" land.  That part was on me - I had to own that.  If I could make this blog interactive this is when a flock of doves flies out at you and hallelujah music begins to play, maybe a cliche movie rainstorm with a rainbow - it needs to be that dramatic because this mental shift of mine was THAT dramatic.  It was also just the beginning.  Think of this like a game of golf or yoga - you never really master it, you just get a little bit better than the last time and that's your measuring stick for present success.

Ultimately my take away from both my personal experience and in what I've witness of others is that when you try to cheat your way out of feeling pain or when you hide from that pain by chasing superficial pleasures you're missing out on growth.  Your entitlement is denying you a critical part of this entire journey, it's shaping the values you measure yourself by and you're relinquishing the enormous power of being able to be the Architect of your new design.  I have a weakness for 90's country - Rodney Atkins sings about going through hell and I love the line when he says "you ask directions from a genie in a bottle of Jim Beam and she lies to you" You can swap out "Jim Beam" for any number of things, but ultimatly when entitlement, or role as a victim,  causes you to go looking for answers or distrations in bullshit places, you get bullshit answers in return - every damn time!