Edition
13
Pay attention, class.
Today we’re going to explore the reasoning behind the human need
to “deserve” anything.
You’ve seen the ads on TV,
“I deserve this credit card,” or, “I deserve this new washing
machine,” whatever. What in the world did you do to deserve
these things? Worked hard for it, well, that’s understandable.
But the idea of just sitting around feeling you “deserve” something
goes against logic, especially to this offspring of what Tom Brokaw
called The Greatest Generation.
The working hard for something
and getting something nice for that hard work is logical.
I guess I’m finding it hard to understand the rationale of young
folks who sit around, work for a couple of years or attend school
for a few years and declare they “deserve” that credit card, new
car, new outfit. And I’m not being a throwback to laboring
in the fields, sweating buckets, working really really hard from
morning to night. No, just the idea of existing makes you
deserving of good things rankles me.
We know a sixteen-year-old young
woman who does well in school and has an after-school job she’s
held for two years. She is not into drugs, alcohol or any
of those naughty things. You could say “she’s working hard.” But
that doesn’t excuse the shocker she gave her family recently at
her father’s birthday party when she showed up with a tattoo.
Not just a sweet little butterfly on her shoulder, which would
have been somewhat acceptable but a hip-to-hip dolphin mural,
black and red, below her belt line in the rear. When she dropped
her britches to show this, uh, thing to the large assembled family,
it was definitely a Kodak moment. Her reasoning? She deserved
it. Well, she wasn’t packing a gun. Guess we could be thankful
for that.
