Last night, I read a reddit comment about people believing that they deserve things. They believe that if they be good and work hard, they deserve a decent job, decent house, and loving partner. That's really the Western ideal isn't it? Go to school, get a job, get married, buy what nice things you can afford, spend time with your kids, retire, find a hobby, get old, and you're done. It sounds nice. The system seems to be set up in such a way that facilitates the largest proportion of people being able to accomplish this.
I have nothing against this ideal. People value what they value. A whole lot of people value that school-job-family-stability ideal, and for good reason. It seems like a totally worthwhile thing to pursue. If nothing else, there are surely much worse things to value than safety, security, and an attractive partner.
What I have a problem with, and what I found myself agreeing with the reddit commenter on, is the very idea of deserving something. The idea that if one does good and works hard then one deserves something good in return, or if one is lazy and kind of a dick then one deserves bad outcomes, is based on the antiquated idea of an omniscient higher power that directly enforces justice on earth.
This isn't to say that I don't believe in God, or don't believe in morality, because I do. What I don't believe is that morality is directly enforced on earth in response to an individual person's actions. The concept of an afterlife in which everyone gets their just deserts is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to explain. This isn't only about morality.
For example, I don't believe that anything says a person who puts hours into his resume and sends out hundreds of copies deserves to find his dream job more than someone who sends out 10. I don't believe that the guy who goes to the gym and runs a mile every day deserves a better body and a hotter girlfriend than the guy who does 25 pushups a day. I don't believe that the guy who studies 4 hours a day deserves a better mark than the guy who studies an hour or two a week. Of course, these nice things all seem more likely to happen for the motivated guy who puts in the effort, and in most cases, they probably are. There are actions and there are predictable consequences, but there is not a universal justice that makes sure, or even should make sure, they always turn out the way they are "supposed to".
You don't deserve anything. I don't deserve anything. If you are reading this on a computer, we are two of the luckiest people on the planet to be born into a country where we not only have all our basic needs looked after practically all the time, but have a free education and affordable creature comforts. We don't deserve any of these things, nobody does. If we want more of these things, we can work for them and get them, but we still don't deserve them. Nobody deserves anything, because in this life, there is no such thing as deserving something. You can get away with stealing and hurting people, if you're good at it. You can be a caring, interesting, fit, attractive person your whole life and never fall in love. You can put 8 years of your life into a Master's degree, and have to work at Starbucks to pay the rent in your 1-bedroom apartment. You can be a lazy piece of shit, and be handed a high-paying job because you hung out with the right guy in highschool.
I didn't deserve this study break, but I took it. I'll probably suffer the consequences tomorrow, or maybe I won't. More than anyone else, I am in control of what happens to me. If I bomb my Organic Chemistry final, maybe I should have studied more. But, just as plausibly, it could be an easy test and I could do great, and it wouldn't have anything to do with how much I studied or didn't.
There are actions, and there are predictable consequences, but even if I cause something good through my actions, that doesn't mean I deserved it.
