What do we deserve in life?

Compare what you want with what you have, and you’ll be unhappy; compare what you have with what you deserve, and you’ll be happy.
- Evan Esar (1899-1995)

How do we measure what we deserve? Do we deserve more when we acquire more for ourselves? Or do we deserve more when we help others to improve their lives and have more hope for the future?

It's a sobering bit of introspection to ponder what we deserve.

Before we do that, we must drop the pretense that the world owes us something from the time we are born. Instead, it is we who owe the world something for the privilege of building lives for ourselves.

If we choose to let circumstances dictate our lives, rather than to build our own lives, then we must accept what we get. When we build our own lives and in the process enhance the lives of others, again we get what we deserve. In the latter case, we would deserve more. We would get more because others would be helping us build our own lives as we are helping them build theirs.

Building a life is not a solitary process. It's a social process requiring other people who act both as supports for us and as people we can support when they need us.

Bill Allin
If you enjoy daily quotations and comments, please join our group. Our home page is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround/
Learn more about Turning It Around and the TIA project at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl