Posts Tagged: entitlement

“Lust, Entitlement, and Pride”

On September 26, 2020 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

One of my fellow addicts summarized his basic struggles (and my own) in the following manner: “My problem was lust, entitlement, and pride.

Lust: I want it!

Entitlement: I deserve it!

Pride: I can handle it!” (Anonymous)

He went on to say that “having a scare” won’t keep you from acting out in your addiction. Only honesty can do that.

Of course, it isn’t just addicts who struggle with lust, entitlement, and pride. These are human struggles. Addictions are just the usual human struggles on steroids, and those of us who are addicts are not a different species, just a different sub-species of human.

We are all responsible for the things we want. Wants can be encouraged or discouraged. The idea that people’s desires are malleable is behind all advertising. Advertising does not exist to tell us where to get what we need. It exists to tell us what we want, and that these wants are needs.

And, if we want something, surely we must be entitled to it, right?

One of the things for which I’ve never been able to forgive my parents is that they never consulted me to see if I actually wanted to be. I think that being is an important choice. They should have taken my feelings about the matter into their considerations!

If I was not entitled to my choice as to whether to be or not to be (and, as Shakespeare famously said, that is the question), then what else am I entitled to claim as my own? Even life is not possessed, only lived. This is true and has always been true. Covid-19 has simply reminded us of this basic fact.

And then, there is pride, the pretense that “I can handle this.” No, you can’t. Neither can I. The truth is that we do need other people. And I believe that we also—indeed, supremely—need God. That’s true for a baby in arms, for the elderly (which I am now), and for a strong twenty-something person. We may not like it, but it is still true.

So, whether you are an addict or not, I hope that you’ll be honest. It might be a good, daily routine to put in place to begin your day with three basic, honest confessions:

  • I am responsible for my wants, and I don’t really need to have many of them.
  • I am not entitled to anything.
  • I can’t and don’t have to do this alone, whatever the “this” is.

I am not promising that this will be a miracle cure for whatever ails you. I am saying, from my own experience and that of many others, that if you will confess these things and live them out, your life will get gradually better and be enriched in a thousand ways.

Of course, the living out of these confessions is the thing, isn’t it?

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