I’m trying an experiment on this post.
I’ll suggest a concept, and you tell me what you think about it.
Here we go:
You do NOT deserve… anything
And, you do not have ANY rights
Needless to say, I think those two statements are true. Tell me what you think (and why) and, if necessary, I’ll back up my claim (and toss in some jokes) in my responses.
And…. BEGIN…
Comments
21 responses to “You don’t deserve your rights”
One Word: Entitlement
When I think I “deserve” or have “rights,” I feel the stress in my gut of a false sense of entitlement. Feeling that way in the past has led to manipulative behaviors, pouting, not taking effective actions that *would* have gotten me what I want (or at least were more likely to than the whining.)
Entitlement is intertwined with a sense of helplessness – and I’m not . . . helpless. Or I’m totally helpless – they’re both true. Carl Jung is quoted as saying “The measure of a man is his ability to handle paradox.”
I can’t control jack (or jill or . . . ) and acknowledging that seems, before the fact, to be the worst possible world, but *after* I acknowledge that I’m basically not in control around here, somehow things suddenly start working. No, that’s not quite right. I finally notice that they’ve been working all along.
Love, Ann
“thank you india
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence
the moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
the moment I jumped off of it
was the moment I touched down”
– Alanis Morrissette
Well, to deserve is to have a claim to, and it’s a word that’s usually used to describe something one doesn’t have (as in “I deserve my fair share”). If I don’t have something, how can I deserve it? In addition, whatever I do have may not be mine forever. So it seems accurate that I deserve nothing.
I’m not so sure I don’t have rights. I seem to have the right to sit here and type this sentence at the moment. I’d love to hear your take on this, Steve.
Here’s a hint:
If you check the dictionary, you’ll see that “deserve” means “to be worthy of.”
And for “rights” we’ll get variations of: “something to which one has a just claim.”
Carol, do you have a just claim to sit?
Ann, can you see where the sense of helplessness is coming from? Or the falseness of the entitlement?
I do NOT deserve anything? Wow! No wonder my life has been so good. Now it all makes sense. This unfairness in life pisses a lot of people off though, they WANT me to get what I deserve!
Yekaterina… you’re heading in the same direction I am 😉
This “deserving” thing can lead to a lot of upset.
Now, for the fun of continuing to pick at this idea: WHY might I assert that ‘You don’t deserve’ anything is true?
You asked,
“Carol, do you have a just clain to sit?”
I must have, if I’m sitting. Or…???
But then, I am not worthy of sitting when I stand.
Oh darn, I hate when I lose my reference. 🙂
‘I don’t have the right/deserve anything’ and ‘I have the right/deserve everything’ – same thing, two sides of the same coin.
I deserve punishment, I deserve happiness.
‘I don’t deserve’ might be true as a way of getting us out of the deserving/not deserving cycle. But it’s still an opinion. Holding on to deserving or not deserving keeps us stuck. But maybe I deserve to be stuck? Well, I have the right to be stuck 🙂
Oh, here’s another piece of the puzzle:
Often, the phrase one hears concerning “deserve” is:
“I do/don’t feel like I deserve ________ (fill in the blank).”
What’s wrong with that sentence?
Hi Aleks,
Agreed — “do/don’t deserve”, and “do/don’t have the right” are the same thing-ish. But I’m not making a point that you don’t deserve a thing. That is, “not deserving anything” is not the same as “not deserving any thing.” 😉
Carol… What does the fact of your sitting have to do with rights, claims, etc.?
(we’re getting warmer)
In other words, most often people’s attention is on the issue of whether they do or don’t deserve something, or do or don’t have the right to something.
But what I’m pointing to is not about the spectrum of do-don’t (other than to highlight the problem of trying to resolve the issue while still IN the spectrum).
Okay, I can’t keep a secret, so let me tell you where I’m going with this deserve/rights thing:
Both of them imply someone outside of yourself as the judge and/or jury.
Deserve? According to whom?
“I’ve worked hard and I deserve a raise!” In this case, it’s simple to see that you’re arguing with someone who has the power to make that decision… and whether you disagree with each other or not, “deserving” is really not necessary — do the work that reliably leads to a raise, get noticed, and you’ll get it… the concept of “deserving” is optional.
“I deserve to be happy.” (or have a relationship, or to be treated in a particular way, etc.) Well, who are you talking to now? Santa Claus?
“I do/don’t FEEL like I deserve _____ (fill in the blank).” Deserving is not a FEELING. It’s a concept. Confusing a concept with a feeling is the fast-track to misery. Especially because, often, the more accurate statement would be, “I think that I should/shouldn’t get what I want and since it hasn’t landed in my lap, I will now make this petulant statement to demonstrate the incongruity between my thoughts and reality!”
I bet you can see where I’ll be going with “Rights.”
Same place.
Nobody HAS rights. A bunch of bodies CREATE THE IDEA of rights. “Rights” are a made up notion that, once we make them up, we use them to short-circuit arguments about the topics of our rights.
Rather than discuss WHY one group or person oppresses another, the oppressed group merely screams, “I have the RIGHT!” which, as far as I’ve seen, rarely if ever makes the oppressing party exclaim, “Holy Smokes! You’re absolutely correct! I have no idea what I’ve been thinking. My apologies!”
At this moment, there’s a “rights” argument going on in the courtroom — a religious group who thinks they have the “God-given right” to behave in a particular way is arguing with the state and federal government in a country where all humans have the right to NOT behave in that way.
(You’ll notice that by not mentioning WHICH religious group, that statement will be true at any time … there’s always going to be some clash of “rights” in the news.)
There’s also the other side of the coin — that any person has any right to do anything he/she wants. Of course, it’s nice when a person recognizes his/her actions may have an external affect that may reach other people, and to which those other people may respond positively or negatively, which may in turn prompt consequences of one sort or another, and it’s even nicer when the person takes those details into consideration before taking that action, and it’s even nicer still when he/she accepts the consequences without whining and moaning about it. 🙂 Though I suppose in any case it’s not technically a “right” per se, because it doesn’t boil down to being naturally entitled to do one thing and not another.
I guess it really does boil down to one group granting another group the so-called right to do something, have something, say something, etc. Yes, rights are a concept, an idea, but they’re also a reality. Just because it doesn’t have a direct physical representation we label a “right” like we would label a “baseball” or a “hamburger” doesn’t mean it isn’t a reality. It’s a reality created by a consensus among members of a society. Some of those members may disagree with each other about which rights are valid or which rights should be extended to whom, but by determining as a society that such-and-such right exists, we give the concept of that right an existence and make it as real as it can get. I dislike the notion that ideas aren’t “real”. We make them real by giving them a life of their own.
Ah! I missed that “authority outside myself” falsehood. Gotcha!
I’m busy dismantling lies as they come to my attention. Thanks for another one.
That’s not exactly right. It isn’t as if I’m *doing* anything. I am not sure how to explain it. The best I’ve got so far is that I seem to have become Teflon to a lot of lies recently. They just don’t stick.
Love, Ann
Hey, Kris,
The REALITY is the behavior. The “rights” are the justification.
Steven seems to be talking about relations with others as the crucial dimension here for ‘rights’ and such.
What is real, he is saying I think, is first-order experience, as opposed to second order concepts.
Once we are having ‘relations’ with others we are in a second-order, ie, conceptual, realm.
And thus a confused one.
But first-order is also seamlessly integrated by and into concepts. Hard to see a flower and not have ‘its’ parts–petals, stem, leaves in terms of what we been told they afford—e.g., passing along nutrients, attracting bees, etc. It’s all second hand–part of the second order in essence.
So why solidify the first order as part of the price of debunking the second?
If you are having the experience of not deserving anything and not having any rights, why might might you (your soul) have planned that particular experience in your life? Forget whether it really did or not, but focus on the why. See why you’re benefiting from the experience. What’s the upside of the experience? What’s the downside of the experience? Accept the upside and the downside and any internal conflict is gone. I used to use EFT to reach the point of acceptance when my logic and my emotions disagreed and couldn’t reach the state of acceptanced, but I now use soul energy healing techniques. Just go to the root cause, clear it and I’m back to internal peace.
I had an aferthought with some definitions from 3 in 1 Concepts. Their definition of “deserving”, an I AM statment: Deserving means “qualified for, or having a claim to, reward or asistance because of one’s proven excellence.” Internally, you value yourself and know that you’re you’r worthy of being treated with respect and appreciation.” Deserving is a conscious choice. At the subscious we are alive and at the body level tender. Their polarity for deserving is feeling opposing at the conscious level, vindictive at the subconsious level and destructive at the body level.
A definition used internally can have whole different meaning externally. It’s what internal that is of importance.
Ah, Kathleen, you’ve highlighted one of my favorite issues.
Can you have an “experience” of hypotenuse, or of multiplication, or of “democratically elected government”?
Of course not… these are merely concepts. We can contemplate them and have an experience of engaging in that action, but we’re not experiencing those “things” because they aren’t actual things.
In the same way, we can’t *experience* “not deserving” or “not having rights” since deserving and rights are merely concepts. We can experience the effect of BELIEVING that we don’t deserve or THINKING that we have no rights.
If we believe and act like “rights” and “deserve” are real things, then there’s no way to solve the “problems” of not-deserving or no-rights, because we’re tilting at windmills. We’re fighting something that isn’t real.
I’m fond of noticing when people confuse thoughts with feelings; when, for example, they say, “I’m feeling betrayed,” or “I feel like you don’t understand me.” No… betrayed and understanding are concepts and you can’t feel a concept. You can THINK that you have been betrayed and have a feeling that follows that. You can BELIEVE you’re misunderstood and have a reaction to that idea.
i deserve the right to feel o k regardless of what happens ; i am o k regardless of what happens ; note that i can be o k whether i deserve it or not; iam ok no matter what outside person/authority says . i decide for me ; if i let another authority decide this for me i’d ask who decides it for him/her ? jesus /buddha? and who decides it for them? ad nauseaum.
so where does the buck stop? who decides anything for me, i do !!!
[…] You don’t deserve your rights […]
Yeah, but all of this kind of misses the point that “rights” are a legal concept and by definition have to do with the individual within the political group. No one has “rights” living alone in the desert … there is no one around with conflicting desires. Politics requires the balancing of conflicting interests so rules must be developed for that purpose. The basis of those rules are “rights”.
As for your example about deserving a raise, that also is valid in context. Yeah, you did the work or not, but that is the entire point. IF you were given “rules” (that if you do X work you’ll get a raise) and you did X work and did NOT get the raise, you might be complaining to your boss that he violated the agreement. In this case, by the terms of the agreement, you “deserve” the raise and if you don’t get it he is just a rat bastard. (Of course, shame on you for expecting that any such rules, expressed or implied, would be honored in any case.)