Michael Foley Quote

The development of entitlement since the 1970s coincides exactly with a steady rise in personal debt. If you are entitled to a certain lifestyle then borrowing the money to fund it is simply claiming what is rightfully yours – and there is no obligation to pay it back. So the lender attempting to recover money is an ugly bully harassing an innocent victim. Attitudes to debt are a great example of how cultural conditioning can change: not so long ago debt was a sin, then an unpleasant necessity for buying a home, then the way to fund a deserved lifestyle and finally something so obviously good that only a fool would refuse it. At this stage the debt house of cards became so ridiculously huge that the removal of one card was almost enough to destroy the world’s financial systems. And, of course, everyone blamed the bankers for the disastrous consequences. Drag out the bankers and hang them!The problem with an overwhelming sense of entitlement is that it promises satisfaction but usually delivers its opposite. Entitlement encourages all three of Albert Ellis’s disastrous ‘musts’ – ’ I must succeed’, ‘Everyone must treat me well’, ‘The world must be easy’. And when none of these happens, the conclusion is not that the demands were unjustified but that malign, powerful, hidden forces are denying them. So the sense of entitlement becomes a sense of bitter grievance.