# Entitlement as a major amplifier of unhappiness

A crude simplification of an important part of Buddhist thought is
that [desire is the root cause of all suffering](https://www.google.com/search?q=desire+is+the+root+of+all+suffering). There are many
nuances to this, with the central theme being that [*attachment* to
one's desires is the root cause of all suffering](https://www.google.com/search?q=attachment+to+desire+is+the+root+of+all+suffering).

Based on both my lived experience and my reflections, I think that
neither desire nor attachment to desire would, on their own, lead to
significant suffering in most cases. Rather, I've found one key
ingredient that often significantly increases suffering (and a range
of negative emotions): *entitlement* to the fulfillment of one's
desires.

In this post, I'll look at the idea of entitlement and why I think
entitlement is a key amplifier of negative thoughts. I'll explore
related ideas. I'll also look at ways to reduce one's sense of
entitlement without (necessarily) reducing the intensity of one's
desires. This is probably important because for many people (and to
some extent, for myself as well) experiencing desires intensely is a
key part of a life well-lived, so trying to tamp down one's desires in
order to tamp down one's suffering isn't a worthwhile trade-off.

## Entitlement has a crucial role as amplifier of negative emotions

Desire for something can be thought of as having a really strong
preference for it, relative to the alternative. For instance, when I'm
hungry, I have a strong preference for eating relative to the
alternative of not eating.

Attachment to desire can mean a few different things; my own
interpretation is that it means that the desire is very salient in
the mind of the person desiring, and the person is unwilling or unable
to alter the desire (e.g., by cultivating a preference for other
options).

Entitlement is a belief that one "deserves" or "is owed by (specific
people, or the world at large)" the fulfillment of a desire. For
instance, if I'm feeling hungry, I have a strong desire for food, but
that doesn't necessarily make me feel entitled to food. How might I
feel entitled to food? For instance, I might believe that my
housemates who are using the kitchen right now for their own food prep
should vacate the kitchen so I can fulfill my desire for food. Or I
might believe that my family members, or my past self, should have
kept the refrigerator well-stocked so my present self wouldn't have to
go hungry.

Based on these simple examples (and other similar ones) my sense is
that desire and attachment to desire can lead to suffering and pain
that is *strictly local and limited* to the desire. This kind of pain
is a cognitive equivalent of the acute physical pain you may feel when
you injure yourself physically.

However, entitlement can greatly amplify and *delocalize* the
suffering. Rather than just the local suffering that comes from
hunger, or a craving for caffeine, or a build-up of urine, or
whatever, you're now feeling frustration and anger at other people, at
your past self, or at the world at large.

## Intellectual exploration of ideas related to entitlement

### Justified and unjustified entitlement: even justified entitlement is bad

In some cases, one's sense of entitlement may be "justified" in the
sense that one has some well-recognized claim to the thing one feels
entitled to. For instance, you may feel entitled to not being
physically beaten up, and most likely you're living in a jurisdiction
where widely understood social norms and legal codes forbid others
from beating you up. Or, you may feel entitled to getting a certain
quality of service from your Internet service provider, and there may
be clauses in the contract or understandings in common law that do
support that.

On the other hand, sometimes the specific things one feels entitled to
may be in a gray area between justified and unjustified -- there isn't
wide agreement that one has claims on those things. For instance, you
may feel entitled to not having to listen to your neighbor's music,
but others in the area you live in may not consider this a claim you
can reasonably expect to be fulfilled.

There are also cases where one feels entitled despite it being
completely unjustified, even in the mind of the person who feels
entitled. For instance, you may expect your spouse or parent to
magically figure out and fulfill your needs even before you know them.

A lot of the conventional wisdom around entitlement centers around
trying to figure out if it is justified or unjustified. This is most
often seen, for instance, when you go to a friend for advice. Honest
friends will usually point out to you when they think that your sense
of entitlement is unjustified, and help you readjust. But even honest,
well-meaning friends will often loyally defend your right to feel
upset and frustrated and suffer, if they think that your entitlement
is justified.

For this reason, in many ways, unjustified entitlement can be
self-correcting through feedback loops that help you snap out of
it. But justified entitlement can be self-perpetuating. When you're in
the right, there will be few to dissuade you from feeling upset,
indignant, frustrated, and angry that you're not getting what you
expect.

The flip side to this is that justified entitlement has a greater
chance of having its "root cause" fixed; for instance, if you feel
justified anger that your housemate beat you up, your friends who tell
you this may offer you a place to stay to get out of the housemate
situation, and a court may grant you a restraining order on your
housemate. And it's also possible that the fact that friends and
society at large are willing to hear you out and take your side, in
and of itself, diffuses the negative thoughts you feel (even if it
only enhances your sense of entitlement).

### Entitlement and the endowment effect and loss aversion

The [endowment effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect)
is an effect whereby we value things more once we have ownership of
them. A closely related idea is that of [loss
aversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion) -- we value
gains much less than we value the cost of the corresponding losses.

One numerical way to estimate the endowment effect is through what's
called the WTA/WTP gap: the gap between willingness to accept (WTA) to
sell something you already own, versus willingness to pay (WTP) to
acquire it in the first place. For instance, you may be willing to pay
just $100 for a desk (so WTP = $100), but once the desk has been
installed in your room and you're using it regularly, you may not be
willing to sell it for less than $300 (so WTA = $300). The WTA/WTP gap
of $300 - $100 = $200 is an estimate of the endowment effect.

The concepts of endowment effect and loss aversion seem somewhat
linked to entitlement, though they're not identical: entitlement is
more of an emotional (moralistic) state whereas the endowment effect
is more about eventual preferences. Entitlement offers one candidate
explanation for the endowment effect: after we acquire something, we
self-servingly develop a theory for how we're entitled to it, and that
sense of entitlement increases its perceived value to us. I'm not sure
this is the most likely explanation, though.

### Entitlement and the hedonic treadmill

The [hedonic
treadmill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill) is this
phenomenon where as our well-being (such as our health, wealth, and
wisdom) change, our expectations adjust accordingly, so our overall
level of happiness or life satisfaction doesn't change, or at least
doesn't change *as much*. Hedonic treadmills cut both ways: as people
get wealthier over time, their happiness doesn't go up as much as the
initial happiness they would have gotten right after a sudden increase
in wealth. On the flip side, when people lose money, or have a health
issue, they initially feel very bad but over time they adjust.

The emotional state of entitlement is probably part (but not all) of
what's going on here. Namely, as our well-being changes, we construct
stories that justify and reinforce why we deserve and are entitled to
our current level of well-being. This process of constructing stories
takes time, so initially, when there's a major change to our
financial or health status, we respond based on what we previously
felt entitled to. That's why the hedonic treadmill takes some
time. (Also in general adjusting upward is easier than adjusting
downward).

### Entitlement as tool/tactic/strategy: of rights and firebrands

One plausible story about entitlement is that it helps people fight
for their rights and get better outcomes for themselves. The language
of rights and entitlements is seen in political struggles through
large swathes of history. This ties to ideas such as "speaking up" and
"not being afraid" and "say it loud, say it proud."

Although the ideas are somewhat tangled, I believe that it's possible
to find alternative, more effective sources of motivation to fight for
things one believes in. At minimum, it should be possible to separate
out one's "political anger", that one draws upon for political
struggles, from a personal sense of entitlement. For instance, you
may be campaigning against military conscription, and may, on the
political stage, speak with anger and indignation, like a
firebrand. This may be more effective than approaching the subject
with a calm tone. But it's also important to firewall your own
personal sense of entitlement from the political anger you express.

### Entitlement and consumer mindset (versus producer mindset)

I think a sense of entitlement is tied heavily to a "consumer mindset"
-- the mindset of somebody who thinks of the world as producing things
for that person to enjoy. Not all consumer mindsets are entitled; for
instance, one could have a highly appreciative consumer mindset. But
entitled mindsets are usually a subset of consumer mindsets.

The contrasting mindset is a "[producer
mindset](https://medium.com/swlh/consumer-vs-producer-a-change-in-mindset-that-will-change-your-life-11cf8092e3e6)"
where you're thinking: how is this being done behind the scenes, and
how can we do this better? When you approach the problem of being
hungry with a producer mindset, you think: what kind of food purchase
cycle would make sure there's enough stuff in the fridge when I'm
hungry? Producer mindsets are more constructive and less likely to
lead to entitlement. (Excessive use of a producer mindset can have its
own drawbacks; for instance, you might be perceived as a control
freak, or a not-fun person. But specifically in the context of
combating entitlement, producer mindset seems better.)

## Alternatives to entitlement

What are some alternatives to feeling entitlement? If you've read so
far, you may already have some guesses as to what I'm about to
say. Some of it will be cliched, and hopefully some will be
nontrivial.

### "I am not entitled to anything" (the zero-entitlement position)

One (probably extreme) position is the zero-entitlement
position. Basically: "I am not entitled to anything." This position
does not deny the existence of desires or even cravings; it simply
accepts that they exist, and also accepts that they may end up not
getting fulfilled. This position does not preclude feeling great joy
at the fulfillment of one's desires, or even sorrow at their
non-fulfillment. But these feelings of joy and sorrow will be local and
specific, in-the-moment experiences, rather than global,
self-certified rationalizations of how one is entitled to feel.

How can one get to a zero-entitlement position? Probably, many of the
standard techniques used to build mental strength (including
mindfulness meditation and various self-help therapies starting from
CBT) indirectly help here. Probably, executing on standard self-help
techniques while thinking of the zero-entitlement position as one of
the goals can help.

I'm definitely not at the zero-entitlement position, but I feel I've
made progress moving in that direction. Other than self-help methods,
one thing I think has been strangely helpful has been watching both
fiction and documentaries that show people in much worse situations
than my present life. One of my reactions to watching *Squid Game* was
that I feel appreciative that I'm not in a world like that, where my
survival depends on the outcome of a life-and-death contest.

### Safety margins around one's sense of entitlement (reprogramming the hedonic treadmill)

A slightly less extreme position than zero-entitlement is to only feel
entitled to some very basic things, way below one's current level. For
instance, for a millionaire with a reasonably diversified portfolio,
feeling entitled to having enough money to get food *probably* won't
lead to frustration. The extent to which what one already has is
comfortably above what one feels entitled to, is what I call the
"safety margin."

Another aspect of safety margin, beyond one's *current state*, is the
existence of recovery strategies. For instance, a millionaire who
feels entitled to having enough money to buy food is probably in a
good place, but so is somebody who may not be a millionaire but still
has a range of strategies to deal with sudden loss of income and
wealth.

Building safety margins is a form of reprogramming the hedonic
treadmill; our hedonic treadmill tends to eschew safety margins by
quickly adjusting our expectations to our reality. Building in a
safety margin means that we yank away expectations from reality in a
way that keeps a cushion/buffer that we can use up.

### Redirecting entitlement to goal-oriented strategy (taking on the producer mindset)

Entitlement is a "consumer mindset" way of approaching a situation. If
you can take the thing you feel entitled to, and then switch to a
"producer mindset" then you can switch to a constructive,
goal-oriented thought process of how you would go about achieving
it. Even if you have trouble nipping your sense of entitlement in the
bud, you may be able to effectively stop its worst effects if you can
redirect from entitlement to strategy every time you get in the grip
of entitlement.

### Attitude of gratitude

While I think [attitude of
gratitude](https://www.google.com/search?q=attitude+of+gratitude) is a
good idea in principle, I also think it's already well-known as an
idea, and compared to some of the other things written here, it may
even be *overused*. There's a lot of existing literature on attitude
of gratitude, and I don't have much to add.

## Conclusion

When thinking of the causes of one's suffering, it may help to think
about the ways in which one's feelings of "entitlement" are
contributing to the suffering, and how to address these feelings of
entitlement. Focusing on combating entitlement can be a worthwhile
compromise that helps reduce some of the worst outcomes of having
strong intense desires, without letting go of the desires and
associated intense experiences themselves. It is worth separating a
personal, emotional moralistic sense of entitlement from more abstract
concepts of one's rights as understood morally, socially, and
legally. The former is almost always a liability, while the latter may
be a tool for bettering one's own condition and that of society at
large.