Entitlement mentality, in my opinion, is defined as a sense of conviction a person has that they deserve favor or special treatment for things they did not work for. It's the "you own me mentality"
Have you met people who seem to act like you owe them something? They feel like you are responsible for them.
Sometime last year, at my cousin's wedding, I met one of my aunts, who seemed to be in need of data subscription at that time. She needed to check something online but had no data on her phone, so I opted to subscribe for her. Sometimes, when I subscribe for myself, out of my own freewill I will also subscribe data for her. But something different started happening: every month I don't subscribe for her, I will get this text message: "How are you? My data has finished." And I would subscribe for her. A few months ago, as usual, I got her text message. At the same time, I also missed her husband's call. When I returned the call, he told me to recharge his phone because he had no call credit. As the good and kind person that I am, I subscribed data for her and recharged her husband's phone with call credit, but that was the last. She kept sending me text messages saying that she had exhausted her data bundle, but I ignored her.
A few days ago I went to pay them a visit, and she started complaining that if I knew I was not going to continue subscribing for her, why did I start in the first place? She said a lot of hurtful words to me, things that I wouldn't be able to write here. How has subscribing her data become my responsibility? Extending a helping hand to her in her time of need became a problem. This is the reason why some people do not like helping; they have the heart to help, but because of some past experiences, they tend to just keep to themselves.
Four years ago, a friend of mine decided to help a young guy he was always seeing in church. He called the guy and asked why he was not in school, and the boy narrated a sober story of how he was not able to write WAEC with his mate, which was why he was not in school, bla bla bla. My friend told him that whenever they want to register for the next WAEC, the guy should let him know. That was how he paid for the guy's WAEC and bought problem for himself.
This guy automatically turned him to his ATM; whenever he had issues, he would run to my friend. He collected money for different reasons: either his mother is sick, he wants to travel to the village to visit his parents, or he has not eaten for days.
My friend kept giving him money because he really wanted to help the guy, though he didn't tell the young guy that he was planning to support him in his own little way when he gains admission to the university, but he had that in mind.
There was this day the guy sent him a message saying that he had just lost his uncle and that he needed money to travel for the burial and also to be able to contribute to the burial preparations. After my friend read the message, he was upset. That was the last day my friend picked up his phone or responded to his message.
Maintaining relationships with people who act this way can be tiring and frustrating.
There are a lot of ingrates everywhere; they feel they deserve whatever favor you are showing. When you stop helping people like this, they "tag you wicked". A lot of people here in Nigeria call their uncles wicked, solemnly because they refuse to help them. You are not your uncle's responsibility.
People have missed out on great opportunities because of this entitlement mentality, just like my friend and the young guy. If the young man was content, he would have probably gotten someone to sponsor him through his university.
THANK YOU FOR READING TO THE END 🤗
