Deserve

“You deserve to be happy.”  “You deserve to be loved.” 

Who decided this?  What criteria determine these types of entitlements?  Perhaps I am exposing a little piece of self-deprecation here, but it doesn’t matter.  I truly want to know how we came to blindly decide these things for humanity.

“You deserve to have nothing less than what you put in.”

That seems to make me more comfortable.  I believe I’ve mentioned a quote from the book, Perks of Being a Wallflower, in a previous blog.  “We accept the love we think we deserve.”  Combine that sentence with what I feel is a more accurate entitlement and how does that make you feel? 

It is curious to me to figure the aspects of balance with varying expectations within a relationship.  I’m not even talking about a romantic relationship.  This is just as much applicable to friendships, work relationships, parent to child relationships, etc.  Feeling deserving has become this widely subjective verb.  What I believe I deserve is unique to my own points of view.  So, how can we adequately deliver any entitlements to each other when they’re so diverse?

Enter compromise.  Or, what I like to refer to as “the slippery slope.”  If we all minimally expect people to treat each other the way they want to be treated, where’s the baseline standard?  For example, if I really want a person to take an active and supportive role in my passions, then I should do that for that person I am setting an expectation of, right?  And, yes it is absolutely an expectation.  As that relationship evolves and reaches deeper dependency, we start to address those expectations with the other person.  Now, in a healthy and communicative situation, that conversation is productive and receptive.  If love is the root of that relationship, each person will want to provide the other with his or her needs and it will be of little or no consequence.  The more typical relationship (one with a heavy dose of selfishness at play) one person will start to minimize those expectations in the almighty name of compromise.  The baseline opportunity gets squandered and the definition of deserves shifts.

For the sake of this subject, lets focus on the less perfect relationship.  Honestly, it’s really the one most of us can relate to.  The way I perceive a “supportive role in my passions” is specific.  Come to my gigs.  Read my blogs.  Listen to me ride the highs and lows of those creative expressions.  There is my baseline.  Because I will treat the other person with as much translatable action to match my expectation, I’m meeting my own standard of treating the other the way I want to be treated.  The other person has a different idea of what “supporting” looks like.  That person may believe they are satisfying me “their own way.”  The typical way to resolve that difference is to compromise.  Ideally each person rises and/or reduces equally in effort to achieve a successful outcome.  Likely, the disappointed person will reduce the expectation and in the moment feel satisfied.  I hope the slippery slope is evident here.

In that moment of failed “compromise” what really got compromised was the definition of deserving.  It might take a little while to fully recognize the ramifications of that shift, but it does take root in the mind and births resentment.  A passive conditioning began the erosion of how a person baselines what they believe they deserve.  Which further illustrates just how subjective the perception is.  There are several ways this kind of experience impacts an individual.  Some will learn from this and become more assertive in protecting and demanding their expectations until they find the right match to have a satisfying relationship.  Some will erode so deeply, they give up to expecting anything from anyone.  There are a million other outcomes in between.

Being a lover of takers, I’m in the introspective stage of how I move forward defining what I deserve.  It’s particularly tough for me to wrap my head around this, because I’m a believer in the good in just about everyone.  I have this vast threshold of patience and tolerance intertwined with hope.  My definition of deserves becomes a frayed thread.  I find myself constantly seeking people I hope recognize what I deserve.  I have been counter-productive and ultimately self-deprecating.  I give my definition to someone else.  This has royally screwed me up.

On two separate occasions, a mental health care professional informed me that I expect things from people that are not capable of providing the expectation.  I either needed to learn to lower my expectations to reduce my disappointment or change the relationships.  Twice.  I heard that twice and I did not like it.  I thought it was absolute bullshit that I could not demand what I needed from those particular individuals.  Fast-forward a decade…ok.  I get it.  Dammit, a lot of time was wasted.

I have been learning to understand what I personally deserve.  What has been fascinating to me during this evaluation is my slightly cynical perspective is based on real life.  Now, I can look myself in the mirror every day and not doubt the justification.  In all my human imperfection, I consistently try to be a good friend.  I am finding foundation in my education in knowing what a siphon looks like and I avoid those toxic people as much as possible.  I am learning to not so freely give myself away.  This is tough for me.

The last thing I want to do is expect anything from a relationship that is unrealistic or based on an inflated sense of entitlement.  Once upon a time, I told myself I would never reduce myself for the comfort of another.  I almost did.  I am learning the art of the compromise.  The last thing I want to do is run around this existence with an entitlement based on something I can’t substantiate.  I want to accept a better love than I have previously believed I deserved.  I think I’m in a space now where I am pretty solid in demanding better.

I would love to discuss this with you.  What do you think?