Category — Character Development Plan

Religion is a controversial subject.  If you want to get people excited or make them defensive, start talking about religion.

People say you shouldn’t talk about religion or politics, but I have noticed folks talk about politics.  They don’t talk about religion.  Why is that?  Religion is an important topic.  No matter what religion you are, your beliefs determine what happen to you when you die.  Don’t get me wrong, there are times when we do talk about religion.

Discussing Religion is Not Taboo When…

1. We are trying to convince someone else to join our religion. 
People are more than willing to invite me to their church.  I would love to think it is because they like me as a person and think I could add something to their congregation.  Maybe they invite me just because they are being friendly.  More often than not, however, I get the feeling they are inviting me because somehow they feel responsible for saving my soul. 

We feel comfortable talking about religion with others when we think we can help them, and when we think by helping them, we can help ourselves.  People have been taught the way to reach salvation is through the teachings of their religion. That often includes converting others and spreading “the word” to all nations. 

2. We are discussing it with people of our own faith. 
People love to talk religion with people who believe as they do.  It is safe, comfortable, and doesn’t create hard feelings.  We love to go to worship with people who look like us, act like us, and generally believe like us.  We are in fact, birds of a feather. 

Yet, churches are one of the places where we are truly divided into race and income levels.  Even those of the same religion tend to congregate with others in their sects of the same income level and race.  Look around your city. Is there just one church for each religion, or are there several? Do the congregations in different neighborhoods look very different from each other? How often do they mix with each other?

Why Discussing Religion is Taboo…
The reason we are okay discussing religion in the previous scenarios is they are comfortable situations.  The problem with discussing religion in these scenarios is we are not likely to learn much. Why? To begin with, we are typically convinced we are right in our beliefs.  Therefore, we approach discussions about religion more in a teaching mode then in a learning mode.  Few missionaries spend much time listening to the beliefs of those they are witnessing to because they are too busy teaching.    

If we spent more times as scholars of religion, willing to listen to the views of others, we might actually learn quite a bit.  More than likely, what we learn will just add on to what we already know.  In fact, it may not be as drastically different from our current beliefs. 

Why Discussing Religion is Important… 
No matter what religion you are, I believe you can learn something from the spiritual beliefs of others.  I say this only because I have lived and witnessed it first hand. 

I have been blessed to visit over 40 countries on six continents.  I have knelt at the shrines of, and been blessed by Monks, in more than 20 Buddhist temples.  I have also knelt and received blessings at the altar in several Mormon temples.  I have cried at the Wailing Wall with the Jews in Jerusalem and was privileged to be one of the only non-Muslims to visit the Dome of the Rock, one of the two most sacred places to Muslims. 

I have been to many Mosques and have had dinner in Mohamed Ali’s castle.  I have toured the ancient ruins of Egypt and studied the ancient religions of their inhabitants.  I have dined with the village chief of the Achuar Indians in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador and studied the ruins of the ancient Indians of Machu Picchu, Peru and Tikal Guatemala.

I have had the opportunity to do the jumping dance with the Masai Warriors of Tanzania Africa and talk about their dual black and red God. I have received several Hindu blessings, often thought to be the world’s oldest religion.  I have also knelt at Jesus’s birthplace and cried at his sepulcher putting my hand into the hole where the cross was planted for the crucifixion.   I do not have a degree in theology, but I have studied it throughout my life.  Perhaps my lack of degree from any one sect gives me a more open perspective. 

The Lessons from Different Religions… 
What I have taken away from these experiences is the understanding of just how dedicated and spiritual each of these groups can be.  Without exception, people want to be happy and to have more for their children than they had. I have also learned most adults become the same religion of their fathers.  In fact there is a 95 percent chance that you are the same religion as your parents, and an 80 percent chance you are the same religion as those in your community.  It’s hard to chock that up to choice.  

We could learn so much from each other if we could learn to listen and help instead of blame and stereotype based on religion.  It’s unfortunate that so many times we place being right above loving others.  The strange thing is that love of others is taught in most religions as the strongest of all values.  The great teacher himself said when asked the greatest of all commandments, “Love God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength . . . and the second is like unto it. Love they neighbor as thyself.  No other commandment is greater than these.”  

Wow, NO other commandment greater, not even being right. That’s something to think about.

Over the last few months something has really started to irritate me, and I notice it irritates a lot of other people too. I even realized that by partaking in it, I was becoming irritated at others. That is when I realized just how much our society has grown to allow the feeling of entitlement to control us. Let’s face it, you decided to read this article because you wondered what tips it would give on how to ensure you get everything you are entitled to get.

Getting everything you are entitled to get is easy. Why? Because the only thing you are entitled to on this earth is the right to breathe, and that could be debated. Everything else is privilege, a luxury, a lucky chance, or a direct result of the effort you put into living the life you design for yourself. Do you feel the need to argue that point? Go ahead, you’re entitled to.

History of Entitlement
Sociologists attribute the growth of entitlement to Generation Y, or the group of adults born between 1982 and 1995. In general, adults who grew up in Generation Y were sheltered by their parents, not taught the value of work, and given just about anything they wanted. Why? Their parents wanted them to have life easier than their own childhood had been. This is the same group of parents who grew up reaping the rewards of their own work and saying things like, “There is no elevator to the top, only stairs.” Ironic, eh?

Additionally, the over promotion of the “customer is always right” and “because I’m the boss, that’s why” mentalities has led us to believe everything should always be just the way we want it. After all, if I am going to pay $6 for my morning coffee, I am entitled to a smile and friendly banter. If my doctor is going to charge me $100 for my visit, I am entitled to be treated like royalty the entire time I am at the clinic. If I work for my company for a year, regardless of the amount of effort I put into my job, I am entitled to a pay raise on my anniversary. And if my employees are salary instead of hourly, I am entitled to be able to call them when it suits me, even if they have already put in a full days work.

I am part of generation Y. I wish I could say I lack the feeling of entitlement. I do value hard work, but there are times when I feel I deserve preferential treatment just because I am me. Lucky for me, I have also realized if I live my life believing everything should just happen to me because I was put on this earth for it to happen, nothing would ever happen.

Problems with Entitlement
What about you? Do you feel like you are special, or do you realize there are a lot of “special” people out there all competing with you to succeed? The problem with feeling entitled is we lose site of the perspective that everything we get and do comes with consequences, conditions, or effort spent. When we allow entitlement to overtake us, we lose the joy of work and gratification. We rob ourselves of the chance to develop initiative, motivation, and personal responsibility.

Being Special Will Hurt You
If you have never been told this, the next sentence could be a hard pill for you to swallow. You are not special just because your parents told you that you are special. You are not special just because you won a major award two years ago. You are not special just because your business succeeded and now you are making more money than you ever dreamed possible. The moment you start to think you are special you stop your ability to continue with progress. The reality is you are not entitled to anything. You have to continue to earn success, every day. Yesterday’s accomplishments are just that – yesterday’s.

Being Special Will Hurt Your Future
Another problem with entitlement is it stops people from setting their dreams and goals. Take a second to look back at your life. At this very moment is your life where you thought it would be 10 years ago? My guess is the answer is no. It may be time to sit down and map out a goal plan for your life. If you need help, check out the program I completed recently, Living Every Minute: Design the Life You Deserve. It will help you kick the entitlement curve and set up a plan to actually get you where you want to be. The hard part is you will have to actually work. The good news is you know you are entitled to reach your goals because you are willing to work for them.

Being Special Will Make You a Victim
Finally, you need to realize you become a victim the moment you let a sense of entitlement take control of your life. It is very easy to recognize when this happens because you will start to blame everyone on earth for your failures instead of owning up to how you could have preempted them or how you can avoid them in the future. The more special you feel, the more you anticipate receiving appreciation, recognition and praise when you do something right, and the more you start to resent people when those things do not happen.

Don’t get me wrong. To your parents you will always be special. To the rest of the world, however, you are going to have to work very hard to succeed. If you sit around feeling special, at the end of the day, all you will have is a feeling. It is important for you to understand what makes you unique. It is even more important for you to work hard and use those unique skills to foster a successful life. And the only way you can do that is by setting goals, working to achieve them, and using your unique attributes to benefit others.

Need help getting rid of the entitlement attitude and writing a plan to take control of your life again? Then check out the Living Every Minute Design the Life You Deserve Complete Program.

Have you ever put your nose in the middle of something, thinking you were helping, only to watch the entire event blow up in your face? I try to live a fairly drama-free life, mainly because drama creates stress and sucks the energy out of my otherwise overly productive and energetic personality. But a few weeks ago, I attempted to help a co-worker by defending her to our boss. In the end, not only did I get a lecture for getting in the middle of company gossip by our boss, but she stopped talking to me.

Lesson Number 1: Ignore Venting from Co-Workers
My boss was right. If you allow every employee you work with to use your office as a venting ground, two things happen. First, you lose time better spent on important tasks as you listen to their “oh woe is me” story. Second, you make yourself part of the problem, either by offering advice or by debating their drama over in your head trying to justify a resolution. Don’t do that to yourself or to your career.

Lesson Number 2: There are Three Sides to Most Drama
The second thing I learned, as I was getting lectured from my boss for getting involved in the drama, was there are three sides to ever story. There’s “he said”. There’s “she said”. And somewhere in the middle, there’s “the truth”. When you become the venting board for one person, you may seek to give advice on only one of those sides. That is what I did. Only I took it a step further, and I actually went to my boss to tell him how wrong I thought he was to treat my co-worker the way he had. My mom always called me her “Little Erin Brockovich” growing up because I liked to stand up for others who wouldn’t stand up for themselves. Unfortunately, this time I stood up for someone without learning both sides of the story. As it turns out, I had no grounds to stand on.

Let me tell you. There are few things worse than having to eat crow when you’ve jumped down the neck of the owner of the company for something it turns out he never did. Lucky for me, the owner knows me well enough to not fire me for my moment of stupidity.

Lesson Number 3: Wag Your Own Tail
Sometimes it is good to be an Erin Brockovich and stand up for others. Just remember, Erin stands up for people seriously hurt or injured who are unable to stand up for themselves. In the case of office drama (or most other drama people bring into your life), if someone cannot stand up for themselves, they truly do not need to be coming to you to vent. Do not leave yourself open to it.

Whenever I have a problem, I tend to turn to quotes for advice from those much wiser than I on how to fix the problem. To solve this particular situation, I ran across a quote that has become my new life motto.

“Honey, if it ain’t your tail, don’t wag it.”

Those nine words have some of the most powerful advice I have ever been given. So today I share it with you. If the problem someone brings to you is not directly related to you, turn them away to solve it on their own. When you stop allowing the drama to come into your office, it is amazing how much more time you have to finish projects. It is also amazing how much more energy you have when you stop letting the weight of others weigh you down.