Monday, December 07, 2015

Entitlement Poisons Relationships

Near Yellow Springs, Ohio

A person who has been cured of the entitlement disease...


  • talks little about their own self
  • is beyond victimization
  • owns their own faults and failures
  • shows interest in others
I have met some people like this. After spending time with them I often feel better about myself and about life.

On the other hand, being with entitlement-diseased people is burdensome. John Townsend writes:

"Entitlement poisons relationships. Who wants to hang around a self-absorbed, entitled person? Who yearns to listen to someone talk about themselves 90 percent of the time, blame fate and other people for their problems, have little interest in taking ownership for personal difficulties, and show little interest in the unlucky man or woman who regularly spends a lot of time with them? I can testify that a lunch hour spent with an entitled individual can feel like an unpleasant year." (Townsend, The Entitlement Cure: Finding Success in Doing Hard Things the Right Way, pp. 101-102)

Flannery O'Connor once described a proud person as someone who waters their own self that they might bloom before others. The thought that I might be like this is so frightening that it might work to scare me into humility.

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SEE ALSO:

Children and Entitlement