What Do I "Deserve"?--A Paragraph a Day

There is too little idea of personal responsibility;
too much of "the world owes me a living,"
forgetting that if the world does owe you a living,
you must be your own collector.   -Theodore N. Vail

I start with the above quotation because it seems to me that this tendency is getting more and more predominant among people, especially here in the United States.  Our tendency to feel entitled to whatever it is we think we deserve is getting stronger, and unfortunately, we're getting more and more willing to harm other people in our quest to collect that which we think we deserve.  Our characters are being warped by our thoughts of what we deserve without doing any work to get it.  The truth of the matter is that we truly "deserve" very little as human being who just happened to be born into the society in which we were born.  I believe that because we're born into a society, we are entitled to the very basics of life, such as food and shelter and clothing on a basic level, but anything beyond that should be worked for, should be achieved--because that's what helps human beings to grow and develop and get stronger in life, the effort and work that it takes to make a great career, to buy just the right house, to reach a state of abundance rather than wallowing in a state of want.  The world has a whole lot to offer us, but many people see what it has to offer and simply say, "I should have that because I deserve it."  They don't keep in mind that other people have had to struggle harder than they have, that many have come into the world with far fewer privileges than they've enjoyed--and perhaps, those other people "deserve" those things even more.  But life isn't about looking around to try to find things that I deserve to have--rather, it's about coming to terms with those things that I truly desire, and then getting to work to accomplish what I need to accomplish to get them.