Gratitude Versus Entitlement

Gratitude Versus Entitlement
An unidentified Rose City Antifa member flicks off to the police during a demonstration between the left and right at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Ore., on June 29, 2019. Moriah Ratner/Getty Images
Paul Adams
Updated:
Commentary
We have much to be grateful for. Developing and practicing gratitude as a habit and outlook on life is important to our well-being and that of society. So why do we teach children and young people the opposite: an attitude of entitlement and grievance, of resentment and victimhood?

Reasons for Gratitude

We may be grateful for our own life and for the fact of life itself; grateful that there is anything at all rather than nothing. We are grateful, if we pause to reflect on them, for our vision and other senses, for our mind and knowledge. We appreciate our mental and physical health, perhaps most when they are compromised.
Paul Adams
Paul Adams
Author
Paul Adams is a professor emeritus of social work at the University of Hawai‘i, and was professor and associate dean of academic affairs at Case Western Reserve University. He is the co-author of "Social Justice Isn’t What You Think It Is," and has written extensively on social welfare policy and professional and virtue ethics.
Related Topics