You are part of the unaware majority who acts according to the belief that you are deserving of more than what is offered you.
I am not.
I believe that if I got what what I deserved, if any of us got what we deserved, we would simply die after living a short, meaningless life full of equivalent suffering to what we ourselves perpetrate with our excessive, materialistic lifestyle.
I am of the minority who believes the world doesn't owe me anything, and that what I have is already the result of underserved kindness of God and others who reflect God's kindness. That broadly the presence of anything good in my life is in itself a gift.
It makes me recognize that even when I'm not happy or don't get everything I want, that alongside any natural disappointment I still ought to be grateful for the good that has been given to me and say thank you for those things.
But you: you are offered good gifts, and your reaction is squeeze to see what more you can get. And you resent others when they do not continue to give you more.
And my issue with people like you is even when you hear people like me talk about gratitude, you still typically look at it from the lense of "if that's what makes you happy."
It's not all about my happiness, it's about a sense of gratitude influencing the thanks I give and the way I treat people, including people who may not be able to give to me as much as I am able to give to them. Why would everything have to be about my own happiness to be worth it?
~~
Rant over.
I think what keeps getting me isn't people struggling to be patient. It's normal to struggle with being virtuous, we all do. And I have no problem with someone having lots of good things either. But It makes me so angry that being spoiled makes some people so unmerciful towards others, when reality is that God and life has already been so more kind to them than they deserve... and yet instead of reflecting on these things to motivate them to treat others better, they themsleves just think they deserve even more!
I also think that we have become so numb in our spoiled lives, myself included, that we are print to turning a blind eye, and avoiding thinking about the horrors of the world that we ourselves perpetrate with our stuff.
Our electronics. Our food. Our clothes.
Our overconsumption drives so much abuse of the planet and animals and other people. And while we ourselves are not individually responsible for this system and I don't want everyone to just be torn up in guilt over what they individually do not get to control, I want people like me who live in such grossly overconsumption-driven communities to not be so entitled on top of it. So unmerciful to others. To lacking gratitude for it all.
I myself even as I write this am already too imperfect in my gratitude and mercy and pride. But I am consciously trying.
What gets me is people refusing to acknowledge all this to begin with. And how their feeling entitled to so much leads to thinking it's okay to treat others with contempt.
You don't have to be perfect in your execution. We all act out of harmony with the values we think we have, I am no different.
But acknowledge it. Acknowledge that you are not more worthy than someone else to receive more, and that what you already have been gifted doesn't make you entitled to more gifts or make you more worthy or valuable than someone life has simply given less to.
My awareness of this is in itself a gift, I understand. Which is why I don't resent people not not having these thoughts by themselves. But I do resent those who consciously choose to reject thinking about this when it is brought up to them because it doesn't reinforce the over inflated ego perpetrated by this world.
We are all recipients of mercy and kindness of a truly divine level. And the infuriating, highest irony is it tends those of us like me who are amoung the materially most fortunate who are first to forget that when it comes down to the way we choose to treat others.
~~
Anyway that ended up being rant part two.
Long story short is the parable of the unforgiving slave.
That's really all.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk, but feel free to ignore me and just read the Bible instead. Evidently I have nothing both useful and novel to say.
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