Entitlement

"Be careful about feeling entitled!" my math teacher, Brother Rich, warned us one day.

Some of the students in the class had been complaining about the secretary's harshness in grading our homework. Brother Rich agreed with us, and was offering us some extra credit work to make up those lost points. But he warned us not to start feeling entitled to all kinds of extra credit.

In reality, we don't deserve much, like the Book of Mormon teaches in Mosiah. Too often students feel entitled to better grades than they really worked for. An attitude like this can cause all sorts of problems.

Bro. Rich pointed out how an attitude of entitlement has brought down our economy. People are living far beyond their means because they feel like they deserve more than they have. People take what isn't theirs because they feel entitled to it. Example: Bernard Madoff, who made off with a lot of money that didn't belong to him. This is the very attitude, Bro. Rich told us, that has ruined our economy.

I was struck by this "lecture" and the way Obama is approaching the situation. Obama wants to spend money to save us all because we deserve to be saved. We don't deserve to suffer. I was struck by the difference between the principle that, if lived by, would always save us from such trouble, and Obama's spending more money to pull us out of our own hole, yet only digging the hole deeper.

Beware of feeling entitled!!