“I deserve it” thinking

Have you ever rationalized a purchase by thinking to yourself: I deserve it? I think we all have, or at least those of us who still feel the need to occasionally rationalize purchases.

The belief that I deserve something is very attractive. It sets the stage for a story of injustice. If I do not possess this object or enjoy this experience, I have been wronged.

Although we share a few inalienable rights, we all live under the reality that most things in life are scarce. In a market system, prices convey important information about scarcity. And so, we might very well need something or even deserve it, but someone must pay for it.

Insisting that we deserve things we cannot afford gives birth to a sense of entitlement which begets reckless spending. A belief which pushes us further from reality and ignores the core issue. To acquire something, we must pay the associated costs.

When costs are ignored, years of sacrifice are often required to remedy the situation. If the problem is ignored for too long, occasionally, bankruptcy is inevitable.

The current foreclosure mess is just one example of the spread of I deserve it thinking. The American dream was treated as a right and the true costs and sacrifices of homeownership were not counted. Dreams lie shattered and families are relocating—all because people felt they deserved a house or a piece of the rapidly appreciating housing market. They simply didn’t weigh the costs of homeownership.

Are you focusing today on something you want or need, instead of how to get there? How do you remind yourself to focus on how to accomplish your goals instead of fixating on wants and “needs”?