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Success: Entitlement and Today's Generation

What is it about not only the up and coming generation but about the generation now entering the workforce that leads them to believe they are entitled to everything. What makes them believe they are entitled to success?

I am one of this generation and I have experienced the emotions and thoughts that come with it first hand. I've expected things in my life to be a certain way... for me to just move and have everything fall into place. For me to speak and doors to open. In various areas of my life this is more or less true yet I realize the tragic flaw in the fundamental philosophy of this new Entitled Generation. They, we, I am not entitled to success... we are entitled to the opportunity to succeed.

This is vastly different and to add emphasis let me repeat that - We are not entitle to success. We are entitled to the opportunity to succeed. In today's workforce, and the schools of our nation, young men and women feel they are entitled to that which they want... whatever it is. Recently I was talking with a Producer for the CBS television show 48 Hours and he mentioned the difficulties they have at the studio with this rising generation. He stated that after only a few months the employees, even if they are only answering phones, want to be promoted and produce shows. This producer repeated many of the things he had heard them say, "Anybody could do it," or "I could do it no problem," and "It's not that hard!" He responded to such comments... "that may be but you haven't put in the time." He had been working there for over 15 years now and these young men and women felt 'entitled' to his position, one that he earned with his time, energy, and according to his productive talents.

Work ethic in this Entitled Generation is many times non-existent and while there are many who have learned to work there are many, many more who only work when it leads to something they want. They have misaligned values and lack empathy, many times, for the needs of others and the effects of their decisions on others. Many times others suffer so that they may have what they are entitled to receive. I've witnessed first hand, both in my life and in the lives of others, the effects of this self-centered and self-indulgent behavior.

One important idea, which can help us to cope with this attitude and new philosophy as a part of the Entitled Generation is the following - Opportunities do not disappear - they simply pass us by. Taking that idea to heart along with the maxim that we are not entitled to success but to the opportunity to succeed leads us into a whole new world.

Success will result only from hard work and cannot be handed to us... to this generation. If success is acquired in such a manner it can only result in the utter destruction of its possessor. Time has shown that those who create wealth do so because of who they become in the process of its acquisition. Those who inherit wealth, if they are not taught to work and to become the same type of person, will squander it on self-indulgent behaviors and slowly hew down and lay waste to the tree of wealth that has been planted before them. Wealth is not created from someone deserving something but from something else.

When I say this I beg you to read it twice, even three times... for it is a subtle difference. We do not become successful by what we do... but by who we are. This is not to say that we are entitled to success. We do not deserve success in and of ourselves. We deserve success only in proportion to the service we can render our fellow men. We acquire success in direct proportion to the philosophies and ideologies we hold in our minds and hearts - and from these philosophies and ideologies stem every action we take on a daily basis. Thus though all things come through our actions they do not come from our actions. They originate on the deeper level of who we are.

Let me illistrate by using the example of someone ap