Forms Of Entitlement Thinking

I received a lot of interesting comments last week after I published my article about how various local politicians, business people, and former CAT employees feel as though they are entitled to certain actions and behavior from CAT.
On Friday (March 17), while Georgette and I were having dinner at a local restaurant and we ran into a young man we hadn’t seen for a couple of years. He told us that he was laid off from CAT in August 2016. Georgette asked him how long he had worked at CAT and he said that he had worked there for more than eight years.
He said that after he was laid off, he immediately began searching for another job. Within a short period of time, he found a job at a manufacturing company in Wisconsin. He left his wife and children
The news of this sudden increase in business brought to mind something else that I wrote last week:
All forms of entitlement thinking are dangerous and destructive. A sense of entitlement always leads to disappointment, resentment, anger, frustration, arrogance, complacency, and laziness. An entitlement mentality breeds helplessness and dependency and hinders a person’s ability to show appreciation and gratitude.
I’m not saying that it was only an entitlement mentality that led people who had been laid off from CAT are file for divorce and engage in criminal behavior. Generally speaking, people who allow their lives to fall apart because of a job layoff have limited faith and coping skills. Every crisis should be looked at as an opportunity to develop new coping skills and to grow closer to God.
On Tuesday of last week (March 14), a gentleman posted the following comment to my article, which was posted at
The people who were referenced in the passage from St. Matthew were welcomed into heaven because they did what they were created to do. They did not enter heaven because they were entitled to get into heaven. God rewarded them because they spent their lives following His plan for them.
The Catholic Church emphasizes the importance of the “hour of death” for a reason. We are expected to know, love, and serve God until the moment of death. There is never a time during our lives that we are finished with this requirement. We aren’t done until we breathe our last breath.
The article that I wrote last week was not an endorsement of the policies and practices of CAT. While I periodically write articles about individuals who have built multinational companies from scratch, those articles have always focused on the admirable qualities of the individual and how we can learn from or imitate those qualities.
There’s an old saying that “success leaves clues.” Why wouldn’t we want to emulate certain qualities that have made other people