The Universe Doesn’t Care
Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.
Don Draper (Jon Hamm, Mad Men, Season One)
I don’t have much of a life these days, which means I had plenty of time to sit on the couch and watch the “Mad Men” marathon leading up to Sunday’s series finale. In a scene from one of the show’s early episodes, advertising guru Don Draper (Jon Hamm) spends an afternoon at his mistress’s Greenwich Village apartment getting stoned with her and a handful of her bohemian friends. After being subjected to several rounds of verbal abuse over his service to Corporate America, Don delivers a short lecture to the band of marinated beatniks. “I hate to break it to you,” he says, “but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.”
Truer words are seldom spoken, and they’re as true today as they were in the Sixties.
If there was one piece of advice I could pass on to the Millennial generation, it’s that the world doesn’t wait for you to grow up. It simply moves on, with or without you. The danger is not growing up with a sense of entitlement; it’s okay to want things and to want to change the world. Rather, the danger is growing up with a FALSE sense of entitlement. That’s the message from the scene in “Mad Men.” People with a false sense of entitlement often hold a negative view of societal requirements and hard work—they put it down and ridicule it. They think they deserve things they haven’t earned, and they can develop contempt for people who decide to do what it takes to succeed.
Yes, we are entitled to our freedom, opinions, rights, etc. These are given to us and supported by law. But like all things we get for free, we often fail to realize the value of the privileges we get with entitlement. Even worse, a false sense of entitlement can result in a level of arrogance that leads to many life disappointments. This can be seen in many of our relationships where we or others feel they are entitled to unconditional love, unquestioning respect, or absolute loyalty without having to earn it. Over time, most will adjust their attitudes, but only after learning some very bitter lessons.
I’ve always believed that a parent’s job was to give their child what they needed so that they could grow up and earn what they wanted. I also believe in something my older brother Steve used to say to me on the golf course after I shanked a three-foot putt to lose a hole. “If you’re looking for sympathy, Little Brother,” he’d say, “you’ll find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.”
Truer words are seldom spoken.