The Viable Alternative

As I’ve decided that this year, 2011, being an incredible breakthrough year for me isn’t an option, I’ve come to realize in my path of self discovery that to make this declaration into a reality, I need to adopt an attitude of entitlement.

When I say “entitlement”, I don’t mean it in a negative way. There are two kinds of entitlement a person can have, one that comes from a reactive victim mentality and one that comes from a proactive victor mentality.

The first type exists when a person complains endlessly about how sucky his life is and how he got the short end of the stick because nobody has given him the opportunity to be successful. YET, while complaining, this same person engages in destructive behaviour that is inimical to his success i.e. drug abuse, alcoholism, or just plain making bad decisions, and every time an opportunity does come around, he’s either too blind to see it or too lazy to do anything about it.

When asked why he doesn’t go and create his own opportunity, he will come up with endless excuses about how all the odds are stacked against him, how hard it is for him, how futile it is for him to even make an attempt, and every which excuse out there that covers the fact that he’s too scared to put in a little elbow grease.

Basically, a person like this wants “success” to fall through his living room ceiling or be delivered to him personally by the mailman. He feels entitled to something that he refuses to work for.

Some people with this mentality take their “entitlement” to a level where they feel entitled to what another person has worked hard for and go and steal or take by force what doesn’t belong to them.

Then there’s the second type of entitlement, the one I’ve decided to adopt, which is the “Why not me?” mentality.

This type of entitlement is what triggers the third pillar of The Viable Alternative, Self Appointment. By first feeling yourself as worthy of attaining the thing or things you desire, you’ve begun the process of self-appointment, where you’ve now given yourself permission to go for what you want, telling yourself, “To hell with other people’s permission, I give myself the right to have this.”

A person with this attitude looks at others who have or are doing the things he desires in life and instead of being bitter or resentful about it, decides that he deserves the same things too simply because he’s worthy of it.

He feels that since he’s worthy of these things, he’s entitled to them. His sense of entitlement then leads him to go do whatever it takes to acquire these things.

If the people he encounters refuse to give him the opportunity, he insists on finding out someone he does, and if he doesn’t, then he decides to make his own opportunity.

If people refuse to clap for him and jeer and boo him, he starts to clap for himself, knowing that if he continues to clap for himself in confidence, someone will sooner or later take note, and endeavour to find out what all the “fuss” is about.

A person with the right type of entitlement will not take no for an answer when it comes to him living the life he feels he deserves.

When you feel entitled to something, you see no need at all to complain about or feel hindered by present obstacles, because you believe so much that you DESERVE to have what you desire that you refuse to accept these circumstances as permanent conditions. You know that NO obstacle is ever big enough to hinder you from what you see as your birthright.

I first found out about this mentality when I was 19 years old. After being bitter for a number of years about me not having the success in certain areas of my life, especially dating, I decided it was time for a change.

Rather than coming from a point of envy, I started hanging out with people who were successful dating women from a point of learning what they did. When I heard or witnessed their success stories, I would imagine the same scenarios with me in them. When I saw their unique qualities that made them successful, I noted to myself the unique qualities I had that would make me successful.

I similarly took this attitude to other areas of my social life and also my professional life when I was seeking real world experience as regards to what I was majoring in in college.

Well, lo and behold, my life started to change, and the success I desired, though quite shallow I must say, started to show up in a way that was unique to me. It happened in such a way that when I looked back at the previous year I didn’t even recognize my life.

Then, sadly I lost this attitude a few years later and over the years experienced it in fits and starts but never could quite get consistent with it. In the meantime I was wandering in limbo, not being quite able to get it together and wondering what hit me….until now.

For the past several years, I’ve been experiencing an amazing transformation in my life where everything is starting to seem clear once more. The clouds have parted, the scales have been lifted from my eyes, and the shackles have been loosened, and I’m sensing nothing but opportunity – the opportunity to create whatever I uniquely want in MY life.

I am a divine being and I’m entitled to the best in life (as are you, but I can’t believe that for you, you have to believe that for yourself). No longer will I give away my power, peace of mind and happiness to forces that are seen and unseen. No longer will I put my destiny in someone else’s hands, no longer will I settle for less in life, and no longer will I shake in the boots of mediocrity, afraid of stepping out for fear of what might get me if I try.

The line is drawn in the sand and here is where I take my stand to achieve the amazing destiny that I was meant to realize. If I have to fight for it I will. By any means necessary.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe the problem in this world is that there is not enough of the right type of “entitlement” going around. When people just take a whiff of entitlement, they can do amazing things like topple governments just like we’re currently witnessing in the wave of revolutions that are taking place across the Middle East.

We saw it during the American Revolution when a weak army defeated the world superpower at the time, Britain, to become a young, independent nation. The world saw it in Haiti, where a rag tag army of ex slaves went on to execute the most successful slave revolt in history, playing the world powers of Britain, France and Spain against one another to finally throw out France and establish an independent nation.

The Illusion in life is that we’re helpless when it comes to taking a part in our own magnificent destiny that we desire deep down inside to fulfill. The Illusion in life is that the lives that we dream to live are for those other “lucky” people, but not us.

For years I was trapped in this Illusion, feeling enslaved and utterly helpless to really do anything about the life I truly wanted to live, which involved having a tremendous impact on this world.

I have decided that no longer will I sit and feel helpless to the obstacles that are blocking my way. I will instead use the power of my tongue, as words are truly spiritual and powerful, and follow the teachings of the Master, who said that we could speak to the mountains in our lives and command them to get out of our way and be cast into the sea.

I will no longer allow myself to be denied.

Why should I? As a man who is worthy of the best, why should I let anything get in my way. Why should YOU let anything get in YOUR way?

I’ve achieved great milestones in my self awareness, where I have become more and more aware of the thought habits that I adopted over the years to keep my growth, success, peace, happiness and power at bay. No longer am I in the dark as much as I used to be as to what was keeping me back.

Yet, mere self awareness isn’t enough for growth. You can wake up and realize the country you’re ruling or the company you own is a mess, but there comes a time you have to do something about it. I must now go in and change my habitual ways of thinking that had been limiting me and replace these habits with new more empowering habits.

Since it’s supposed to take 21 days to break a habit, I’ve written a 21 day goal (writing down goals seems to work for me) to break my habit of always associating my identity with my past failures. Basically, up until now, I had this habit of always looking to at my past mistakes to judge how worthy I’m allowed to feel as a person, how capable I’m allowed to feel about accomplishing something, and who I’m allowed to be in the present moment. .

It doesn’t take a genius to see how well this worked out for me.

This is no longer acceptable. As a person who’s entitled to the best, I must take responsibility and remove EVERY obstacle standing in my way of living the life I deserve to live.

And like so I intend to tackle all my other negative thought habits that have been blocking me from living how I want to live. One habit at a time, I will break the back of the “beast” and destroy The Illusion that I have been living under, taking back my destiny in the process.

This is the Viable Alternative, where by any means necessary, (as long as you’re not violating the rights of others), once you have a desire conceived in your heart, you accept it as YOURS for the taking, put on your battle gear, and go out and get it.

Hope this helps.