Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #14)

by Louise Penny

Entitlement was, she knew, a terrible thing. It chained the person to their victimhood. It gobbled up all the air around it. Until the person lived in a vacuum, where nothing good could flourish.

Entitlement, it seems to me, is the opposite of gratitude. It blinds and deafens, and feeds into what we discussed earlier. That sense of victimhood and unfairness. To seeing only what is missing and not what is there. What has been denied and not what has been given. It leads to resentments, which eat a person from the inside out. As you can see, I am no great fan of entitlement. Though I make a distinction between entitlement (which implies a sort of manifest destiny) and having earned something. Worked for it. And are therefore entitled to it. Might sound like a fine distinction, but in my view a crucial one.