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Do You Deserve Your Gifts?

If you think your gifts entitle you to a better deal then ask yourself who gave you those gifts. It was certainly not yourself.

quis enim te discernit
quid autem habes quod non accepisti
si autem accepisti
quid glorias quasi non acceperis

Who made you special, who gave you your gifts?
And if your gifts were given to you why do you behave as if you'd given them to yourself?

1 Corinthians 4:7 [Vulgate and my translation]

I have noticed that people have a very inconsistent approach to entitlements: what I get I deserve, but what you get I'm not so sure about.

For instance, at a conference in London at the RSA, I heard a professor, and senior government advisor, speaking to a room of civil servants, academics, politicians, think-tankers and public service managers:

"The welfare state is how we take care of the poor."

I'm afraid I was unable to resist pointing out that it was a bit rich for people who were all paid indirectly or directly by the tax payer that they were somehow doing a great favour to the poor. As far as I could see they were all making a very good living from the welfare state.

It seems that we think: what I get is an entitlement; what you get is a handout.

I am sure many would argue that they deserve their salaries, expenses, pensions and perks because they are so clever. But who made them clever? Not them.

As St Paul says, we didn't give ourselves our own gifts. We didn't make ourselves clever; it's an undeserved gift. And if we have such underserved gifts we should be happy to have the gift itself - it gives us no reason to expect other benefits, like money or power.

We might say cleverness should be its own reward - except that its not a reward - for you didn't really do anything to win it.

Of course the clever may have to work hard at being clever - it's not always easy - it takes time and effort to learn, to think and carry out complex tasks. But then lots of other people also have to work hard, for low wages, carrying out tasks they don't like, just to earn enough to look after themselves and their family. They do not get to enjoy the perk that the clever enjoy - of working hard at work that is also intrinsically enjoyable.

Our gifts should not be the cause of self-congratulation or an excuse for greed - our gifts were given to us to share - to convert back into gifts for others.