Entitlement and instant gratification are poison. And they have become such a staple of our culture and of my generation that they have become accepted as valid outlooks towards life. We expect things to be given to us. We hide behind the moral high ground of proclaiming the intrinsic value of everything born alive and greedily demand more money, more happiness and more material success from “the world”, "the rich", and the government. Who told us that we deserve anything only for existing? That’s absolutely pitiful, and it has caused us to forget that nobody owes us anything, and least of all the world itself.
Nowadays everyone demands more and more, each individual staking their claim to an ever-growing set of “rights”, while doing absolutely nothing to improve their lives, and crying about the world being unfair. And the world is unfair, in many ways, but that is a basic reality that we are just going to have to accept. You want to know how to minimize the inevitable inequality and unfairness that plague every society? We start telling people that their lives are their responsibility, and we put a stop to the growing culture that establishes entitlement as acceptable. We get people to stop thinking that they “deserve” something, and we replace entitlement with hard work, to get people to understand that things are earned through effort and suffering, and not given freely to anyone that simply desires them and feels they have a claim to them. Instant gratification is a natural, direct consequence of entitlement. Thinking that we deserve everything we want will undoubtedly breed the childish desire to receive everything immediately, and cause us to become impatient. Pair this with the fact that technology has taken tremendous steps towards guaranteeing that we almost never have to wait much for anything, and you’re left with a generation that isn’t used to having to work and wait for absolutely anything, and expect things to manifest themselves magically—and quickly.
Things are earned through effort and suffering, and not given freely to anyone that simply desires them and feels they have a claim to them.
People will go to the gym for a few weeks, expecting to look like a bodybuilder after, and quit when they realize that getting a well-built body will take a massive amount of effort and patience. People will try to build a business and quit when they realize that they’re not going to be millionaires in a year. People will want something, and never dedicate more than a minimal amount of time and effort to trying to get it. No matter how much the world progresses, there are some things that will never be easily attainable, and they are usually the truly important things in life. Remember this, or you too will be caught in the growing culture of impatience, and of lack of perseverance.
Impatience doesn’t only lead to us quitting when things take more time than we anticipated, which is sufficiently bad by itself, but it also makes daily life a stressing and grueling matter in which every time we have to wait for something we whine and cry about it like bratty children. We’ve forgotten the importance of waiting, of being patient, of knowing that valuable things require a lot of time, effort, perseverance and patience to be accomplished. Don’t let instant gratification trick you into thinking otherwise, for that will only lead to you becoming a quitter, and quitters never accomplish anything of value.
Lack of patience is a generalized evil that has become characteristic of both our era and our generation. Because of the rate at which technology advances and the ease of being connected and getting things done quickly, we have become accustomed to things happening and appearing almost instantly. The problem is that this then leads to us quitting or getting severely discouraged when things take longer than expected. It’s critical then, to recognize this and take in the fact that many things —mostly things that are actually worth something— require time and effort to materialize. Knowing this and deeply accepting this truth will help us persevere when circumstances are hard. With patience, and aggressive, consistent action, the things that you’re pursuing will eventually happen, if only you internalize the value of patience and combine it with focused, purposeful actions towards your goals.