Vote for Change

No, this blog is not about President Obama. That blog is coming, though...stay tuned. ;)

So lately I've been becoming more and more bothered by an epidemic that has been sweeping through America for quite some time now. I think perhaps my observations and thoughts have become more potent of late because of the increasingly grim financial climate. Who knows...but here are some thoughts. Ahem. Soap box, please.

A few years back the Gap ran a campaign entitled, and I wish I was kidding, "Instant Gratification." I remember seeing those words painted in the store windows and thinking, "Wow. We're not even pretending any more. We've just embraced our depravity..." I think this is a great illustration of the entitlement pandemic that pervades our culture. My students demonstrate this daily. They are twelve years old, and already they KNOW that the world revolves around them. And I'm not just talking about the typical egocentricity that takes prisoner the heart of every adolescent. I'm talking about a serious sense of "I should get what I want, when I want, and if I don't, I have every right to disrespect and spit in the face of anyone who should get in my way." My students also, thanks to MTV, video games, and computers, feel entitled to entertainment. Everything is supposed to be fun for them, and if it's not they don't have to do it. But here's the deal--I almost can't blame them. Because attitudes like that are learned, not innate. I know this because there is still a handful of holdouts that have not succumbed to this disease. However, almost daily I get emails and phone calls from parents saying that so-and-so should not get the late penalty for turning in the project that was assigned a month ago two days late because he had a soccer game. And if I take the points off, they call my principal and complain that I'm unfair and I have out of reach expectations. So I wonder where this sense of entitlement comes from...

It obviously happens with adults as well. In my tenure at Starbucks, I couldn't count the number of people that felt they had every right to scream at me and call me names if they had to wait in line for more than ten seconds.

And here's the nail in the coffin: our economy is fueled by entitlement consumerism. If people don't feel entitled to a new iPod every time a new model comes out, they won't feel compelled to buy one. If they don't buy one, then Apple loses money. If Apple loses money, they have to lay people off. If they lay people off, then those people don't have the money to go out and buy new clothes at the Gap. If they don't buy new clothes at the Gap, the Gap will lose money and lay people off. Then those people will have to buy generic groceries, and the grocery stores lose money. Not to mention all the sales tax revenue that's being lost. Now the state is losing money. And the first thing that they do when they lose money is take it from the schools, who then have to lay off teachers, who then can't pay their mortgages...you know the rest. So now what? If we don't go selfishly wasting all our money on useless crap, our whole country falls apart.

I digress. Back to the entitlement issue. It's fueled by our free-market economy, and it's built into the fabric of our nation. Manifest Destiny was not limited to continental domination. It still reigns in the hearts of most Americans. We feel entitled to everything.

I'm just as guilty as the next person. I whine and moan because of my "crappy" apartment. If it's cold outside, it's freezing in here. If it's warm outside, it's a sauna in here. So I complain because I feel entitled to a comfortable temperature. Says who? We're not entitled to anything. Not TVs, air conditioning, new couches, new iPhones, or Starbucks. No one owes us anything.

In fact, we're the ones in debt. We produce very few of the world's resources, yet we consume most of them. Sure, we buy Product Red lattes. But we also take a lot more from Africa than we give back.

And what does entitlement cost us? I think it costs us our joy. It's a prison that takes us captive and steals our satisfaction and gratitude. I'm one of those people that hates it that Christmas starts earlier every year. I think the fun gets sucked out of it that way. Christmas is special because it's a season. If we celebrate it all year, the special-ness and magic gets lost. I think entitlement has the same effect. If we expect everything from the world, we lose the joy in the gifts.

So what would it take to change? What if, instead of buying Starbucks every morning on the way to work, we only get it once a week. Then it's a treat to look forward to instead of a given that's expected and mourned when lost. And what could you do with the extra $4 a day that you saved? Maybe pay off the credit cards that you used to buy all the other useless crap. Or maybe you could keep those extra fives in your wallet and give them to the people that wander the parking lot asking for spare change. Maybe you could over-tip your tired, abused server. Maybe you could put it into a bank acount for your kids.

What if, instead of buying a new iPod every time a new generation comes out, you feel satisfied with the one you have. And what if, instead of redecorating your house every year, you buy a bit of fabric and replace some of the pictures in their frames and move the furniture around? What if you buy used books instead of new ones sometimes?

What if you don't spend money on anything you don't really need for Lent, and see what happens?

What if we refused to play the world's game and were grateful for and satisfied with what we have instead of waiting for the latest and newest?