Underprivileged People are usually more Entitled when they Begin to get exposed to Privileges than even Originally Privileged People; My Argument.
We need to begin this gist by us all agreeing in one voice that we are wicked people. Of course, if you no longer identify with the first Adam, you can claim some innocence by virtue of your relationship and association with the blood of the last Adam. What I mean is that, if you came from Adam, you have wicked tendencies.
Recently I saw a tweet where someone said something, sort of an advice, it went; "Do not trust people, trust yourself alone. Atleast you know yourself". It was funny to me because it’s very hilarious and pretty bold of on any human being to think that they know themselves enough to trust themselves. You can only trust God and if you’re honest you’ll know this for a fact because you must have surprised yourself in the past with an action or thought of yours. A thought that scared you who was the thinker, I mean, you realized the thought that just crossed your mind and in Apst. Johnson Suleiman’s voice, saying to yourself ,you went; "you are a bad boy, you are a very bad boy" because you did not imagine that you could conceive or habour such evil thoughts. You don’t get it, God who made man, after making man, sat back, looked at man(that he Himself created) and went; Naah, the heart of man is desperately wicked". Do you get it now?, God was lowkey amazed by His creation. This kain, it is safe to say that we low-key dey shock God. (Ofcourse on a lighter note).
I said all of the above to establish the fact that we have a follow-come conditioning that tilts us towards evil. C’mon! The Bible actually tells us in Romans 12 that everyday Two Laws are constantly at war. The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Vs The Law of Sin & Death. So you will only maintain Goodness by conquest. Your good heart of yesterday must undergo renewal today or your good heart will move evil, today.
This is the origin of Selfishness, Greed & Entitlement. Then on another psychological plane we see people who do not have the right to demand a privilege, get it, own it and deprive others of it. For years I have tried to make sense of the whole thing.
This is why you can bring someone from the village, naive, uncivilized, literally visiting the city for the first time, after sometime this very young girl will tell madam that she can’t have it anymore and wants to leave and all this is happening because a boy has told her he loves her and buys her an android multimedia phone. She will forget how she left the village and conclude that someone who can gift her an android fone is more concerned about her than someone who got her to school. She will almost not realize until that boy says he doesn’t want her anymore and her android screen cracks and she can’t afford getting a new one. But when she landed the city from the village, she was crying tears of joy and promising heaven and earth about how she will always be a good girl.
(Please this does not in anyway deny the fact that people are actually being truly maltreated in other cases)
I started making hip-hop music in early 2010/2011 and a group of people inspired me. I had watched them rap on big stages, it was one of those times I got inspired and motivated to start rapping. I know what it took me to land a relationship with them. They were called Soulflame, a very established Christian Rap arm of Youth With a Purpose. I waited 1year hoping that God connects me with them and He miraculously did. I met the then leader who doubles as a most revered mentor to me till today, he's named Dr. Allnight (as he's an actual Medical Doctor now).
I know how Grateful and excited I was when I succesufully joined the fold, I felt Privileged, it was a reality I was never going to underate. I joined this group and I never counted myself worthy to be on a song and not even a performance with them. I mean, these were my idols. They meant everything to me in my music life. When they shook my hands, I would not want to shake anyone else, so that I can savour that moment for as long as it could last.
3years in, moving with the team, now kicking verses and attending concerts, I settled in. One of those concerts, I did something that I would have argued on my life 3years before that I would never do.
So we are on Stage rapping and I’m on this song with the two most important and respected musicians in my life (still are). We are doing a relatively famous song around us titled "Church Clothes". It’s the 3 of us but they’re just 2 working microphones at this event. The song starts with 2 of my idols holding 1mic each and I’m without 1. When it gets to my verse, one of my idols hands a mic to me, I received it respectfully, I do my verse and get done with it. Now guess what? As I got done with my verse, I knew that I was supposed to hand the mic back but I remember waving the thought quickly away, my argument was that they had been with it all the while and I deserved to be with it for a longer while. I mean I got signals to hand it over but I played a fast one, systematically ignoring every signal, both signals (signals coming from my Spirit and hand signs coming from my idols to hand the mic over). I need to explain what I mean when I say that "I quickly waved the thought of handing the mic back away".
No one swings into action without actively thinking about it. The only difference is that thinking time differs for most of us. And it does differ for a couple of reasons. Individual differences in Intelligence Quotient and general Emotional Intelligence Or Difference is Levels of Observation, Self Awareness or Consciousness. What I mean is that, a less conscious or self aware human being will think before acting just like a more self aware, conscious and Emotionally Intelligent person would, the only difference will be in the speed and present consciousness of the thought process. So the difference between a guy who immediately replys a slap that was given to him in the market square with another slap in immediate split reflex and the guy who relaxed a little before later engaging in the fight or maybe didn’t even respond at all is that the reflex guy rationalizes the situation faster and because of the speed there was probably no time to make sense of everything enough to put things in perspective to know that a better way to retaliate would be to call security on this guy who slapped him, rather than slap him back there and get a broken nose at the end of the fight. He thought about it but he did it in so short a time that there was no time enough to make proper sense of the matter.
So ones psychological makeup will determine how fast they make decisions and flesh them out but every human being ought to be a THINKER to behave well and thinking cannot be hurried, the more you’re able to slow things down in your mind, the better your decision making. I am not digressing at all, even the Bible agrees with me, “….what ever is Holy, Of Good report e.t.c THINK on these things”, the Word of God encourages us to use our THINKERS. When the Bible says "Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies" we fail to understand that the phrase "do not let" is more active than robotic. It will take an active mind to not allow sin have a field day through your members. So anyone who does not have sin reigning in their mortal bodies is enjoying that victory because they are actively involved in not allowing it. As much as the grace of God brings empowerment, it will interest you to know that The Grace of God is a teaching Grace and you must engage your thinking-mind to learn. The Grace of God has appeared to all men, it TEACHES us to say NO to ungodliness and worldy passion. This statement is from Titus 2;11–14.
So I always say that people who will behave better are either people who afford themselves more opportunities to think or people who have surrendered their hearts to Jesus and is actively allowing Him to Lord over it. Or better still ppl who are both THINKERS and also SPIRITUAL(allowing Jesus to LORD over their lives). The last is a better combination because as a thinker alone, you cannot guarantee good action all the time because you can think and still do evil as only the love of God can constrain you from some actions, depending on the level of lust or wickedness in your heart at that moment.
I paused my Story to explain that I refused to hand that mic over either because I didn't think enough to rationalize that doing what I did would mean disrespect for people who literally raised me or I thought of it and knew what I was doing but I couldn't help it as I couldn't let the love of God constrain my action with an unrenewed mind. (By the way, "Renewal of Mind" in my opinion is another way of introspecting, maybe a spiritual introspection, cus it involves mental analysis in some way atleast). Do you get? I'm going somewhere.
Privilege; An especially rare or fortunate opportunity. The word "Fortunate" means bringing unforseen positives. This means that a privilege is anything that you own no rights to.
Yesterday I overheard an adopted young man of 9years going on 10, call a younger girl(similarly adopted but from another family) in the neighborhood a Slave. It caught my attention and I went ahead to ask him if he was a Slave himself and he said NO. I went ahead to ask him why he thought he was not a slave but he thought that another person who was just like him was one and his reply was that he was attending school while the other girl was not in school(because she couldn’t afford it).
It will interest you to know that this young man is on a scholarship and his own biological parents could not afford to pay his way through school and someone opted to pay his way through primary education. To think that this very boy is aware that he’s in school courtesy of a stranger who gave him a scholarship on hearing about the financial stress that insisted upon his parents inability to pay his way through school.
An interesting angle to this is that this young man is pretty young and can be excused for thinking about someone else in that light but I beg to differ, I put it to you that there’s a reason why someone that young can think like this and his age makes it a better case study. The fact that his innocence as a child did not succesufully make it difficult for him to think about someone else in that light says alot about how the natural human heart can explore the thought of evil. I am not in any way making a direct case against the young man, he is a child and I am fully aware of that, he’s just a case study. I needed to emphasize that.
Memory; A record of a thing or an event stored and available for later use by the organism.
Take note of the phrase "for later use".
Memory is nothing if the information cannot be retrieved for use on a later date.
An average human being does not have a remembrance problem for good things as we do for bad things. Have you noticed that you hardly forget those who hurt you and how it happened compared to how you forget those who showed you favour in time past?. Even when you remember, hardly are you passionate about telling the story of how you were hurt by someone compared to telling the story of how you enjoyed a privilege. This is why in life, it is very easy to believe that not a lot of good things have happened or are happening in your life while experiencing a tough season. Whereas, if you take time to look through, you will always find alot that you were ungrateful for.
Little wonder the song Writer sang; Count your blessings, name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done". I agree with whoever put those lyrics together, because I have found out from personal experience that until you conciously count your blessings, you may never see what God has done or is doing for you.
I am of the opinion that a thinker will generally remember more and only that remembrance can guarantee GRATITUDE.
Gratitude; Being thankful, Recognizing the source of pleasure.
Recognizing the source of Pleasure. Did you read that definition?
Any one who makes it through with always recognizing and recognizing fast the source of any pleasure they enjoy, will generally value what they enjoy more and they value the source by extension and this will translate to them seeing clearly their smallness/insignificance in the grand scheme of things.
Entitled People are Potentially Privileged People with Poor Memory and Underprivileged People tend to be more Entitled because they are starved of Privileges, so when they See one, They Hold on to it, Don’t Want to Let it Go so much so that they May not Give Opportunities as easy as They Get Them.
You may argue this but you will soon agree with me.
There’s a story in the Bible were a servant was owing his master, his master excused him of his debt and we immediately see this servant go ahead to send someone else who owed him to jail bcus of the person’s inability to pay up what he was owing this servant. I mean, he did the exact opposite of what was done to him. That’s how classical underprivileged People act. Until you enjoy enough mercy to recognize and remember that it is not a right, you’ll almost always tilt towards withholding it from others.
The entire purpose of this long read is to emphasize GRATITUDE. We need to learn and teach others the length and depth that genuine gratitude can go in making one a generally better human being.
I have people always accusing me of over exaggerating THANK YOU’s but I learnt growing up that it is better to over appreciate than to water down opportunities to express gratitude because Ingratitude is the only mother of Entitlement.
•That adopted young man who called the other girl a Slave said that because he had FORGOTTEN that was in school by undeserved Privileged. He unconsciously thought that privilege was A Right.
•I did not quickly pass the mic to my idol that night during that performance because I had FORGOTTEN how I got there.
•The servant whose master let him go with his debt yet went ahead to insist on the next man paying what he owed him did that because he had FORGOTTEN the favour that was just shown him.
If you UNDERSTAND that you freely received, you will freely give. If you know the worth of what you have and how it came to you cheaply, it will inspire your benevolence. If not, you’ll be proud and entitled.
Have you not noticed how rich people communicate gratitude for the most little things you do for them but poor people act like you’re rich for them and your money is their money? (as though their money is missing). (When I say “Rich” and “Poor” I’m talking Mentality other than availability of Cash).
I remember when someone asked me for money, I told him to give me a minute to get back to him. I went about looking for the money to send him because I barley had it(unknown to him). I had not gotten back to him in some hours. He starts calling me every single hour round the clock. I come to see a text where he told me how I was wrong to have kept him waiting all this while since the money was not any serious amount of money. He clearly thought he was doing me a favour by asking me to give him money. Very funny right? (to think that I had no money even for myself that day).
If someone gives you N1,000 that you did not work for, if you don’t appreciate the giver from your heart because you think the person could have done more, the percentage chance that you can or will give N1,000 to someone else is 0% and just incase you’re able to give it, you did it because you saw how that N1,000 can give you N2,000 in the future, I mean, you saw it as business and that’s not what it means to give freely.
I hope you can make sense of all of the above. If I explain more, the point will be missed. I’d like you to read through again, you will find the GOLD.
Bye.
Day3.
@day3thepod
