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We generate our own environment. We get exactly what we deserve. How can we resent a life we’ve created ourselves? Who’s to blame, who’s to credit but us? Who can change it, anytime we wish, but us?
-Richard Bach
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Do we get what we expect to get since we believe we deserve to have it? There seems to be a more basic question: What circumstance or perhaps, who determines something we deserve? This matter is basically subjective though I would like to believe that there are cases when it could also be considered objectively.
We did a job quite well in behalf of another and we expect to get a commendation from the latter because we believe we deserve it. We anticipate congratulatory remarks after the performance of a praiseworthy accomplishment. We are convinced we deserve to be paid fairly in the appropriate practice of our profession. We deserve a word of gratitude after getting out of our way and walking an extra mile, so to speak, just to make another feel better. Human interactions on a daily basis are in one way or another commonly characterized by expectations and in so many instances, expectations to get what we feel and believe we deserve.
But in what way are we supposed to get what we deserve? Shall we openly call the attention of the one who should be expressing his or her gratefulness to us? Shall we make some subtle moves just to make the other person feel or be reminded that he or she should be doing an act or saying some remarks as an expression of appreciation which we think we deserve? Shall we exercise our highest sense of trust towards the other person whom we consider to be respectable, hence there is no need to explicitly or implicitly call his or her attention to pay us or to praise us or to thank us because he or she will do it anyway at a later time?
As a matter of culture, we don´t openly call the attention of the other person and tell her or him to thank us or to praise us. We just wait and when such expectation is not consummated, we just resign to a state of disappointment. However, doing a professional job in service of another is another thing. Culture dictates that one should be paid for a job well done for she or he deserves it. And if the other person fails to carry out such a serious obligation, the one who rendered the service has all the rights in the world to get the payment she or he deserves. The former instance is subjective while the latter is objective.
Now the nitty-gritty of the issue is: Do we ACTUALLY get in ALL cases what we deserve? One´s response is dependent on her or his hermeneutical take of the question. If we are of the belief that every experience in life is the most likely effect of previous deeds on the one hand and the most likely cause of future events on the other, all that we have gotten and thus constitutive of our lives on earth—past, present and future—are what we in reality deserve. We are in the here and now because this is the result of what we´ve made our lives to be and this is what we deserve. Life is a matter of one´s choices and with all the choices we´ve made, this is our present condition which we deserve after all.
But if we believe that certain forces—both benevolent and malevolent—are operative in our reality to which we are subject and hence of which we are not totally in control, we have to accept the fact that in some cases, we are happy to get what we deserve while in other instances, we experience disappointments as we are deprived of the things we deserve. In this connection, we further ask: Are we living in a world that is inherently unfair or this view is just the result of our disappointments after experiencing setbacks in life? Perhaps the world is neither; it´s a neutral world. We have people here and there whose fairness towards others is a prominent virtue. But we also have the opportunist kind whose ways and means are always to take advantage of the others.
The ethical resolve that we should have upon this realization is two-pronged: As to subjective expectations, we should exercise a certain degree of soberness towards ourselves and in every particular circumstance and learn in the process the fact that some anticipations will be fulfilled whereas some will not. As to objective expectations based on established standards like in getting monetary compensations or in obtaining scholastic grades and qualifying institutional recognitions, we have all the rights in the world to use those very standards to openly claim—even fight for, if necessary—and finally get what we deserve.
© Ruel F. Pepa, 4 June 2013
ZETETIKOS 