I hate the word “deserve.” It is so often misused, mishandled, and enhances my misanthropy. “I deserve a car. I deserve food stamps. I deserve children.” What people really mean is that they want or need a car, that they need food, and that they want children. None of these things are usually what we as people deserve. When you go into a post office, and everything is going slowly and you’re inconvenienced, you don’t deserve to be treated better just because you’re a customer rather than a government peon. If anything, the peons deserve more because they are overworked, underpaid, and understaffed. If you’ve been trying hard for a baby and you don’t get one, it’s not because you don’t deserve it – it’s because it didn’t work. And you don’t deserve a baby if you finally get one. You just have it. I do not deserve the privilege I have today any more than other people deserve their lack of privilege. We simply have it. Is it fair? No. Am I entitled to my privilege? No. Is anyone in a less privileged situation entitled to my privilege? No. It’s pure coincidence I ended up with privilege and someone else didn’t, but I’m not entitled to that privilege and try to pass it on when I can.
I’m sick of hearing the word “deserve” where there is so little deserving. Wants, needs, neither are given or withheld according to deserving. If you work hard at your job, than you deserve a paycheck, because your contract says you do – perhaps it is more accurate to say that you earn your paycheck. You are allowed to tell your boss that you deserve compensation if your pay is withheld. If you’re a saint, you deserve far more than a selfish bastard. A certain amount of self-sacrificing is impractical on a small scale, but altruism is necessary on a larger scale. Those who self-sacrifice in such a way that benefits more people than that person strains on any system, then you can make an argument for whether they deserve compensation, either material or immaterial. But those who say that they deserve something in return for their altruism rarely deserve anything, while those who say and truly believe that they deserve nothing usually seem to be the ones who deserve the most. We don’t deserve anything just by existing. We don’t deserve anything just for being occasionally good, especially since we’re also occasionally bad. We don’t deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They are our rights as citizens of America, but those rights were given to us. They were not deserved; we are not entitled to anything, no matter what advertisements say.
