Don't Fall Asleep In The God Realm

I’ve been thinking lately about entitlement, and how it runs deeper than mere psychology. You can explain anger, for example, as a reaction to being taken advantage of. You can explain grief as a reaction to loss. But entitlement isn’t necessarily a reaction to anything. It’s a way of understanding what we’re owed.

Entitlement isn’t the same as privilege. The two can overlap, but entitlement goes deeper. It begins when we stop experiencing what we have as a gift and start treating it as the natural order of things.

Modern society is full of entitlement. We expect food, electricity, or clean water to be there whenever we need it. Often, we expect people to love and shelter us no matter how little attention we give them. And though we don’t like to admit it, we can be genuinely suffering from external conditions and also crippled by our own ingratitude.

In fact, despite all our stress and uncertainty, much of modern society resembles what Tibetan Buddhists call “the god realm”: a state of extraordinary abundance in which we become so accustomed to good conditions that we forget they’re temporary. The gods, they say, tend to become heedless, enjoying the fruits of their good fortune without cultivating the conditions that sustain it.

So do we. We mistake clicking and consuming for producing something of real value. We mistake attraction and desire for doing the work of relationship. We mistake extracting resources for prosperity. And we mistake passing experiences for spiritual practice.

Don’t fall asleep in the god realm. Question your entitlements. Tend to the people who tend to you. The point is not to sink into guilt, but to take care of the regenerative sources of goodness in your life. Everything good has conditions. Find out what they are. Develop them.

As always, if you’d like to be held through your own process, reach out and we’ll set up a free coaching call.