A great example of this would be the current "controversy" over ESPN's "Bracket Challenge". The rules clearly stated that an entrant must be 18 years of age to be eligible for the promotional prizes. Well as things would be there is a 12 year old who apparently chose to enter and finished tied for first and now there is a fair amount of clamor that he should get the prize. For starters, the rules clearly state that the "Grand Prize" goes to a "randomly selected winner from the top 1% of entries"; so the fact that he finished tied for first wouldn't guarantee him anything to start with other than some bragging rights. But even if that were not the case I have an issue with those (including he and his family) that seem to believe that ESPN should award him the prize. He plain and simple violated the rules. Why should that behavior be rewarded? And in reality it would appear that by him doing so, he's knocked someone who followed the rules out of the top 1% and cost them a chance at the grand prize. Look, assuming the young man did make those picks on his own, then kudos to him for finishing tied for first. But, it should stop there.
Another of my (not) favorite examples is "so and so makes more money than me, but they haven't been here as long". Did any of the people saying things like this ever stop to think that perhaps the people they are referring to might have more qualifications or experience? Or that they've simply done a better job and are deserving to make more? Or even that they simply negotiated their starting wage better? For that matter, have they bothered to speak to the powers that be regarding what they make? In general, it seems that the answer to most/all of those questions is usually no - they simply believe that they should make as much or more because they've been there longer. Yes there are jobs (often union jobs) where they would, and while I personally was brought up pro-union and understand what they have done and continue to try and do, I am a firm believer in paying for performance over longevity. I could go on and on with this particular instance as I dealt with it quite a bit as a restaurant manager over the years, but that's probably better meant for it's own post at some point in the future.
I have plenty of other examples, but rather than going into them I thought I'd wrap up by tying this into the Transgender community. For me, I want to be accepted as a "woman" - it shouldn't matter if I'm a cis-woman or a trans-woman - I am a *woman*. In order to do that, *I* believe that I can't expect special treatment/favors because I am in fact a trans-woman. But I see plenty of others trying to use the fact that they are trans-women/trans-men to their advantage. I've seen some do it for college/grad school admissions, scholarships, internships, etc. Now I'm not saying that there aren't legitimate reasons to point out that someone is a trans-woman/trans-man, there are, rather I'm talking about those that simply use it to try and "get ahead". Look, if that's what they feel they need/want to do, then that's their decision and that's fine. But for me, I don't believe in doing that, and while I won't judge anyone else for doing it, I also cannot condone it as many of these same people would be the first to complain when they don't get treated the same as a cis-woman/cis-man. So if they want to use their status as a trans-woman/trans-man to their advantage that's fine, but then don't come crying when it doesn't work out in their favor.
I'm quite sure that there are those of you that will disagree - it happens with most of my "opinion" posts, and that's fine. I'm always open for debate on anything, but for me personally I really do believe that as a whole the sense of entitlement - especially in the United States - has gotten completely out of hand and we are a worse country today because of it.
I could go on, but truthfully my mind is starting to wonder a bit, so I will cut this short now. As far as a thumbnail goes, I'm going to go with a caricature that I had done a few weeks ago. It was done by Marcus Sakoda who I ran across on Reddit. He's very talented and I think he did a great job with the picture I gave him, which happens to be one of my favorite pictures of J and I.
-M
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