When I look closely, I’m surprised to see how much of our anger is related to nearly hidden entitlement schemas operating in the background. We all like to think of ourselves as unselfish and unentitled, but are we really?
We often recognize entitlement in others in one of its most obvious forms: a person who appears to think s/he deserves better than us for no apparent reason, or who deserves luxuries or a standard of living higher than us.
However, many forms of entitlement are not so materialistic and we easily let them control us in subtle ways.
Entitlement schema while driving in traffic
For example, if I get annoyed with driving in heavy traffic or waiting in a line, it’s generally because I have this feeling that I shouldn’t have to deal with this traffic, as if somehow I’m special in that way.
But am I really that special and entitled? All of us who live in this busy region have to deal with this heavy traffic on the roads every day, and it’s unreasonable to think we can avoid it—unless we think we’re special.
It’s more reasonable to simply deal with expected but unliked situations like these in the best way possible. During a different period of my life, I used to enjoy complaining about the obvious, but that merely drew attention to myself and showed everyone that I had entitlement issues.
You might call this an anger issue, but you might more concisely call it an entitlement issue, since entitlement sits at the root of this anger. Anger doesn’t exist on its own for no reason.
Entitlement schema in interpersonal relationships
Interpersonal relationships can be difficult, whether at home or at work.
There are many times that I get angry and hear the voice of an entitlement schema in the background whispering to me, “You shouldn’t have to be in this situation and put up with this person and their actions. You don’t deserve this!”
And it’s true, sometimes I do need to reconsider my circumstances and make choices so that I’m not in a situation like that again with a person like that. Maybe I really don’t like this kind of friend, or this kind of boss.
Nonetheless, when I look deeper, I see that in many cases I simply feel like there’s something special about me that should exempt me from the need to navigate and negotiate the normal difficulties of interpersonal relationships.
In my case, this “I’m too good to deal with other people and their foolishness” form of entitlement schema has direct roots in my upbringing by emotionally immature and sometimes abusive parents.
Us children had highly negative experiences (emotionally and physically) when we disagreed with our parents and thus never learned the important interpersonal skills of “agreeing to disagree,” or “agreeing that everyone has a different opinion on the subject.”
As a young adult, I found myself feeling angry and entitled to something better each time my relationships didn’t come with zero conflict and zero disagreement—unfortunately, this is not a reasonable expectation.
I had never learned to be comfortable and accepting about the normal disagreements with others and asserting my own opinions if they disagreed. Disagreeing does not mean a confrontation, though I was brought up to think that it does.
Of course, if my opinions agreed with those of others nearby, I loved sharing them as loudly as possibly, to show I’m a team member. How shallow is that?
What I hadn’t learned is that people aren’t ever going to be the way I want them to be, no matter which friends I choose, and that I need to learn to deal with people as they are, rather than complain about them every time they don’t agree with me on everything.
Entitlement schema as class warfare
There’s a common preconception in some circles that higher-class people will behave in an entitled manner toward others, to maintain their social status, values, and standard of living—whether done consciously or not.
What’s not considered as often is that disenfranchised individuals can use their own entitlement schema to justify theft, damage or bodily harm to others. Such people can feel that, because they aren’t getting what they “deserve” in the world, their negative actions are justifiable to make life a little more fair for them.
The right measure of entitlement is actually a good thing for us all!
We need a certain amount of entitlement to maintain our self-esteem and to motivate us to live toward our desires and goals—not too much, but not too little.
We should feel entitled to our close interpersonal relationships being free of abuse and deep disrespect—otherwise, why maintain them? We should feel entitled to relatively equal pay and treatment in the workplace compared to others—otherwise, why not look for a job somewhere else?
But let’s not get all angry about every detail about our how our life isn’t as perfect as we’d like, and then blame our anger on the outside world, instead of seeing our anger as a result of an entitlement schema that we somehow developed during our life.
Life isn’t always fair and perfect, though I really wish it were.