"Why Can't I Be Treated Specially?"

There’s a way my dad describes those that feel entitled. You’ll hear him say things like, “He was walking around with the mentality of ‘I’m good enough to get it, so why can’t I?’ Despicable.”

But, to be able to clarify it, I’ll give you the meaning and why I was elated to see this particular topic. Human entitlement therefore is,

A sense of entitlement is a personality trait based on the belief that someone deserves special treatment or recognition for something they didn’t earn. In other words, people with this mindset believe that the world owes them without ever giving anything in return.

The truth about this is that it is practically impossible to go about our daily lives or live life in essence without encountering people with this personality at least once or twice or fifty times.

And since it’s a personality trait, it mainly stems from your mind. You’ll start thinking things like this in your mind. “But, I’m the smartest in the class, why wasn’t u chosen to represent it?” “But I’m the one with the most experience in this field, why shouldn’t I lead the delegation?” You see, you may think that thoughts like these are just random and in most cases they are.

It could be just a fleeting thought but when you start implementing it, making demands from that thought constantly, it becomes your personality. When you do not just expect these special privileges but start feeling a sense of superiority over others, it becomes your personality.

I gave thought to it and from my personal experiences, entitlement mentality stems from two reasons. The first is the individual achievements of a person. The world we live in today places so much importance on a person’s individual achievements. So maybe he’s a renowned lawyer, probably a SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria) and he steps into a room of maybe, even his own friends and he’s greeted warmly nonetheless causally and he begins to fume. “Don’t they know who I am? How dare they?” You see, in that kind of situation, he’s feeling a sense of superiority to the others so he believes he deserves a grand welcome, maybe even a standing ovation, a moment of reverence, crazy things like that before he’s satisfied.

And the next one stems from background. A person used to bougie life, never having to work for anything in his life. His senses are already cultured towards the idea that I deserve everything because it is my right. But ladies and gentlemen, have you ever heard entitlement by proxy? I don’t even know if it’s an actual thing but the experience I’m about to share made me understand that it is in fact, a thing.

It was my cousin’s housewarming party. And since she’s my first cousin, technically, I wasn’t an actual guest. So, I found myself with the duty of serving alongside other servers with clear instructions to share to everyone. So, here I was, with the tray of sliced cakes sharing to the guests and then I reached a particular group of people and proceeded to serve them the cakes when I was taken aback by a remark. “Are you mad, do you know who I am? How can they send someone to serve us?”

I later found out she was the sister of my cousin’s husband. And thus, expected to be served by the hosts themselves. How very befitting. So, at that moment, I fixed her the most plastic smile I could offer and went away, head held high. I wasn’t a servant. And she obviously didn’t know who I was too but that didn’t matter.

Thus, I came to understand that a person could feel entitled. Not because he or she is someone of importance, but because they are related to someone of importance.

My view on all of this however is that it’s unnecessary. It borders on pride and people like that end up being heavily embarrassed sooner than later. But, in the meantime, I can never go out of my way to change people with that kind of personality because it’s not something anyone can do. I just avoid them when I can, and when I can’t ensure I don’t ever contribute in adding to their already inflated ego.

Picture above is mine. This is my response to