I was going to start off this rant by saying kids are spoiled. However, their sense of entitlement is part of nurture, not nature, and it’s we, the adults, who need our collective asses kicked.

Sadly, it’s not an uncommon occurrence to be at a grocery store and happen upon an aisle with a child throwing an impromptu tantrum over not being able to get his or her favorite box of sugary cereal. Instead of taking charge–no, better yet, instead of having their wayward brat trained not to be a public embarrassment, the parent is trying to console, or worse, is in turmoil. At that point, I consider two things:

1. My mother always talked about some starving child in some impoverished land who would be grateful to just have the basic necessities met

2. THE PARENT NEEDS HIS/HER ASS KICKED!

Oh, you were under the assumption that I would hit you with something a bit more lofty and meditative, huh? Nope: Mom and, primarily Dad, need the joint venture of well-placed footwear to the backside. But going too far into the paint on how ridiculous it is to worship and kowtow to children is for another blog altogether. Instead, we’ll concentrate more on gratitude on having the basics. And that’s about how lofty this thing will get…

The point of this post is to argue neither the existence or non-existence of a Higher Power nor the name of said Power. To not step on too many bunions, most of us can agree our world resides in a galaxy, which is itself part of a larger universe; likewise, the machinations of the cosmos has certain rules in place.

Matrix-like simulation or not (yet another philosophical argument to be waged another time), in the reality we know, something wakes us up each morning. Whether crusty-eyed and booger-nosed with the remnant of the nightly drooling session in the corner of the mouth, or rising as perfectly as an actor in a commercial about how clean her sheets smell, the point is, we wake up.

And that’s all we’re owed–though we never even earned it. That’s a basic blessing because, at some point, a person will no longer wake up and our time on this mortal coil will flash like the “game over” screen in a dusty arcade…

But, given the gift of life and the ability to get up and about is more than enough. We’re not “owed” anything else besides that. In the universal sense, the only tantrum we should throw is that we wasted the time we were given–and that falling out, kicking, and thrashing should be relegated to ourselves–not to some parental Creator, as if we’ve done something to deserve our favorite sugary box of bullshit.

Once we get over our sense of entitlement, we will begin to see life differently. Understanding the blessing of life and time, we’ll make better choices on how we spend and invest it. I’m not saying we should work ourselves into an early grave–never that. I am saying that, once we get that life is the ultimate “hookup,” we should quit our bitchin’, stop our whining, and carry on smartly.