PART 1 Q & As
1. What does “entitlement” mean? Can you give an example to explain it?
"Entitlement" means a person feels so good or so worse about himself/herself that he or she is?unconscious of the reality about their life. For example, a person spends much money from his parents on getting many degrees. He can't find a job to raise himself but he thinks that he is one of the smartest person in this world and look down upon others, thinking that they are all not well-educated.
2. What’s the point of telling Jimmy’s story?
The author tell Jimmy's story to give a detailed example to show how entitled people look like and how terrible their life actually are. Jimmy's story shows that a person?feels deserve good things without actually earning them is?troublesome asshole.
3. Do you think you are special? What’s wrong with feeling you are special?
I think I'm special in some ways but in other ways I'm not. If we feel we are special,??we may think we need to be more extreme, more radical, and more self-assured to get noticed or even matter, so more and more we feel the need to compensate through entitlement and addiction and that make us do nothing substantial to achieve our goals.
4. If you are not special, how can we achieve greatness?
If we know that we are not special and we are average people, then we know that we?need to?actually working for becoming better and?accomplish what we truly wish to accomplish. We need to do substantial things to improve ourselves then maybe we can achieve greatness.
PART 2 Expressions
1. On any given day,if you asked him what he was doing, he'drattle off the name of somefirm he was consulting with, or he'd describe a promising medical app he waslooking for angel investors to fund...
rattle off:?rattle something off: to say several pieces of information or a list quickly and easily fro m memory.
e.g. Chris?rattled off?some statistics about the teams.
Students areexpecting to have history classes because their history teacher can?rattle
off relevant stories of some history events to amuse them.
2. Jimmy did make some money, although it was usually through the sketchiest of means, like selling another person’s business idea as his own, or finagling a loan from someone, or worse, talking someone into giving him equity in their start-up.
finagle:?to behave dishonestly or to obtain sth dishonestly
e.g.?He finagled some tickets for tonight's big game.
It’s a grey area, that many try to finagle through, avoiding more responsibilities, yet still taking a claim to those ravishing days of dark nights, city streetlights, pumping fists, and club noise.
3. Participation awards and bogus trophies were invented for any number of mundane and expected activities.
The ticket to emotional health, like that to physical health, comes from eating your veggies -- that is, accepting the bland and mundane truths of life: truths such as "Your actions actually don't matter that much in the grand scheme of things" and "The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that's okay.
mundane:Something?that is?mundane is very ordinary and not at all?interesting?or unusual.?
e.g.?It's an?attitude?that?turns?the?mundane?into?something?rather?more?interesting?and?exciting.
The mundane task of setting the table can be fun on holidays.
近義詞：worldly, bland
4. Pastors and ministers told their congregations that they were each uniquely special in God’s eyes, and were destined to excel and not be average.
destined:?If something is?destined to?happen or, if someone is?destined tobehave in a particular way, that thing seems certain to happen or be done.
e.g.?He feels that he was?destined?to?become a musician.
We were destined never to meet again.
5. People like Jimmy become so fixated on feeling good about themselves that they manage to delude themselves into believing that they are accomplishing great things even when they’re not.
delude:?If you?delude yourself, you let yourself believe that something is true, even though it is not?true.
e.g.?We?delude?ourselves that we?are?in control.
To?delude?someone?into?thinking something?means?to?make?them believe what is not true.
Television?deludes?you?into?thinking you have experienced reality,?when?you?haven't.
delusion:?a false belief about yourself or the situation you are in
e.g.?He is under the delusion that I am going to cheat him.
If?someone has?delusions of grandeur, they?think?and?behave as if they are much more important?or?powerful than they really are.?
e.g. He suggested that we?suffer?delusions of grandeur as a football?nation.
delusional:?suffering from or characterized by delusions.
e.g. Entitled people exude a delusional degree of self-confidence.?
If that sounds delusional, so does the U.S. failure to address this crisis honestly.
6. My temples pulsate as blood floods my brain and face.
pulsate:?If?something pulsates, it beats, moves in and out,?or?shakes with strong, regular movements.
e.g. pulsating rhythms, a pulsating headache
?Lights were pulsating in the sky.
I could see the veins in his neck pulsating.
~ (with sth) to befullof excitement or energy
a pulsating game
The whole city seemed to pulsate with excitement.
pulsation?|p?l?se??(?)n|?noun,?a beat of the heart or any regular movement that can be measured.
pulsator?|p?l?se?t?|?noun,?a device that stimulates rhythmic motion of a body; a vibrator.
pulsatory?|p?l?se?t(?)ri,??p?ls?t(?)ri|?adjective
7. Having found nothing, he seems flustered.
fluster:?If you?fluster?someone, you make them feel nervous and confused by rushing them and preventing them from concentrating on what they are?doing.
e.g.?She?was?a very calm person.?Nothing?could?fluster her.
She was so?flustered that?she?forgot?her?reply.
8. And, as promised, Mr. Price didn’t go easy on me.
go easy on: 溫和對待，從寬處理，手下留情
e.g. Go easy on?him, Rory, he's only little.
It was always assumed that the government would go easy on them in that regard.
9. The deeper the pain, the more helpless we feel against our problems, and the more entitlement we adopt to compensate for those problems.
So more and more we feel the need to compensate through entitlement and addiction.
compensate：to replace or balance the effect of something bad
e.g.?She?would?then feel guilt for?her?anger and?compensate?by?doing?even?more for the children.
People who sense?that?they?are inferior have to?compensate, and often?over-compensate?by way of?outward?achievement.
My trauma had revolved around intimacy and acceptance, so I felt a constant need to overcompensate, to prove to myself that I was loved and accepted at all times.?
overcompensate:?to try to correct a weakness or mistake by doing too much of the opposite thing.
e.g. Zoe overcompensates for her shyness by talking a lot.
10.?All talk and no walk.?語言的巨人，行動的矮子。
類似的表達：All bark, no bite. All tales, no sales.
從正面來說：Actions/ Facts speak louder than words.
PART 3 Thoughts
It’s strange that in an age when we are more connected than ever, entitlement seems to be at an all-time high. Something about recent technology seems to allow our insecurities to run amok like never before. The more freedom we’re given to express ourselves, the more we want to be free of having to deal with anyone who may disagree with us or upset us. The more exposed we are to opposing viewpoints, the more we seem to get upset that those other viewpoints exist. The easier and more problem-free our lives become, the more we seem to feel entitled for them to get even better.
The benefits of the Internet and social media are unquestionably fantastic. In many ways, this is the best time in history to be alive. But perhaps these technologies are having some unintended social side effects. Perhaps these same technologies that have liberated and educated so many are simultaneously enabling people’s sense of entitlement more than ever before.
This constant stream of unrealistic media dogpiles onto our existing feelings of insecurity, by overexposing us to the unrealistic standards we fail to live up to. Not only do we feel subjected to unsolvable problems, but we feel like losers because a simple Google search shows us thousands of people without those same problems.
Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems. The Internet has not just open-sourced information; it has also open-sourced insecurity, self-doubt, and shame.
作者很敏銳很直接地寫出了當下身在信息爆炸的互聯網生活中的人們由此而產生的許多“病癥”。人們看起來聊天越來越多了，但深度的溝通和聯結其實越來越少了，見面時都在低頭玩手機，很多時候并不能產生有效有意義的溝通。人們在網上看到越來越多的知識和觀點，卻變得越來越固執己見，我們可以輕易屏蔽掉自己不喜歡的內容和聲音，只去關注自己感興趣的、想關注的，符合自己觀點的，由此產生所謂的“回音室效應”，一旦看到有不符合我們觀點的內容，我們只會去爭吵、撕X，而不是試圖傾聽、理解和求共識、解決問題，所有人都在說，卻沒有人在聽。我們不停地在各種社交媒體上展示我們想展示給別人的經過美化的我們的生活，同時也為自己看到的別人展示出來的似乎完美的生活而為自己的生活感到無趣乏味，我們不停地追求更符合主流審美、更潮更酷的穿著打扮、生活方式，其實并不滿意于自己的生活。精心修飾過的同樣畫風構圖、加著同樣濾鏡的仿佛千篇一律的照片，讓人審美疲勞卻又樂此不疲。仿佛我們希望自己特殊，卻又不停地擔心自己其實并不特殊，我們渴望關注，又為自己獲得的或者沒有獲得的關注而感到焦慮。Such shameful life.
The fact that this statement is inherently contradictory—after all, if everyone were extraordinary, then by definition no one would be extraordinary—is missed by most people. And instead of questioning what we actually deserve or don’t deserve, we eat the message up and ask for more.
Being “average” has become the new standard of failure. The worst thing you can be is in the middle of the pack, the middle of the bell curve. When a culture’s standard of success is to “be extraordinary,” it then becomes better to be at the extreme low end of the bell curve than to be in the middle, because at least there you’re still special and deserve attention. Many people choose this strategy: to prove to everyone that they are the most miserable, or the most oppressed, or the most victimized.
"Being “average” has become the new standard of failure. " 所以才會有那么多人只求博人眼球、靠出格的舉動博出位，不能做最頂尖的，那就做最下三濫的，哪怕遭人諷刺謾罵也比默默無聞要好。越來越少的人愿意去踏踏實實地努力，通過積累成為真正有實力有才華的人。面對各種各樣眼花繚亂的社會新聞，需要不斷調整好心態，聽從自己內心的聲音，盡量不去理會那些喧嘩浮躁。給自己一片沉靜的空間，一個自己的小星球，在上面種花讀詩，聰明機警地讓自己落后于世界那么一小點，讓自己屬于這個時代，但也能克服這個時代。
