Life, Liberty, and the Entitlement Attitude
Note: This is a reprint of a blog post I wrote for another blog just over a year ago. I felt that it bore repeating.
The sheer brilliance that is these words – taken from the Declaration of Independence – has been on my mind quite a bit lately. As a nation we have already failed miserably when it comes to the earlier part about all men being created equal but thankfully there are steps that have been put in place over the decades that bring such lofty ideas into the realm of possibility.
The part that I think about on a near-daily basis is that last portion about our certain unalienable rights. I don’t think that people really know what they are reading when they see those words or as seems to be the case all too often, they just don’t want to understand because understanding takes too much effort and dare I say it… responsibility.
Those certain rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit. You don’t have a certain unalienable right to be happy, you only have the right to pursue your own happiness. In other words (and forgive my bluntness), when it comes to you being happy, no one owes you a damned thing. It is all – 100% – up to you whether you are happy or not.
I don’t feel entitled to a damned thing if I am being completely up front. I don’t think there is anyone on this planet who owes me. I am here for as long as I am here and I will work for as long as I can work. I think what has hurt our society more than nearly anything else is the Entitlement Attitude that causes some people to give up their pursuit of happiness in favor of being miserable because they feel entitled to more than they have.
Guess what, folks? You’re entitled to a few certain unalienable rights.
That’s it.
You can do what you want with yours; I’ll be pursuing my happiness.
