A Word on Entitlement
While entitlement is a word I often hear used in context of an older generation - one of politicians and corporate executives and Wall Street investment bankers - I find myself more curiously drawn to the way it exists in the younger subculture I’ve been a student of for the last several years.
A sense of entitlement is something I occasionally notice in the “haves” - the lucky, well-supported percentile of youth who reach a certain degree of notoriety, success, and the spoils that accompany it at a young age. The paradigm is that in an ideal world, any business of art would be more purely a meritocracy where a sense of entitlement would more rightly belong to the most talented, hardest working, longest standing, most ethical player in any group.
But the simple truth is that in either case, none of us are entitled to anything.
If there’s one thing I learned in five years of bleeding, sweating, going for broke, and repeating the cycle on the road, it’s that there are simply some equations in life that defy simple mathematics. The guy who is barely qualified to sing in the shower might be riding on the bus playing sheds while the guy investing 80 hours a week into developing his craft can’t get a callback to save his life. The genius with the idea powerful enough to spark the next social or technological revolution might be serving coffee to the Ivy League walk-on devoid of all ambition or intellectual curiosity. There is no absolute correlation between talent or ability or work ethic and success - hence, no one is truly entitled to anything.
Talent does not always lead to success and success is not always indicative of talent.
Young America - remember that you are fortunate for the exciting lives you’re living, but remember that you are a human being no more deserving of good fortune than the ones who came before or the ones who will come after. Remember that even at the top of a dream come true, it could all be gone tomorrow, faster than the blink of an eye.
Because if it was, would you rather be remembered as the jackass who wielded their limited stores of power or influence in the spirit of self-inflation or as the kind, humble soul who worked honestly for everything they earned, even if it fell short of Olympic gold?
I’m for the latter ten times out of ten.
