!. Entitlement

United Nations Human Rights

The mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is to work for the protection of all human rights for all people; to help empower people to realize their rights; and to assist those responsible for upholding such rights in ensuring that they are implemented.

In carrying out its mission OHCHR will:

* Give priority to addressing the most pressing human rights violations, both acute and chronic, particularly those that put life in imminent peril;
* Focus attention on those who are at risk and vulnerable on multiple fronts;
* Pay equal attention to the realization of civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights, including the right to development; and
* Measure the impact of its work through the substantive benefit that is accrued, through it, to individuals around the world.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/MissionStatement.aspx

Entitlement

1 a: the state or condition of being entitled : right b: a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract
2: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group ; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program
3: belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entitlement

Sometimes we get convinced that we are entitled to certain rights, and for some of use this includes luxuries we enjoy.

But how can you claim something like free speech, or a luxury. A Christian in a religiously controlled country can't show the rulers their rights and expect a change just with that piece of information. I child in a refugee camp can't demand enough food to survive on. Is a victim of an assault entailed to a reason why.

Sometimes we like to gloat that we earned our entitlements. Now wait a minute yes we work hard sometimes, but so do many people who receive nothing. The question comes down to did you earn your physical heath, the family/community you were born into, did you earn the air you breath. If you add up everything you receive without payment only an ignorant person could keep the list short. Can we hold God ransom, till we get what we want.

So what do you call something that you receive that your not entitled to. I would call that a gift.

If you think about it most of what we work for would not have been even possible without having a foundation in a gift that we received. Where would Alexander the Great be without his inherited highly skilled and equipped army or Einstein without his brain, the turnaround street victim with out the people who helped him.

So I propose to take the gifts I have an use then to multiply those opportunities for others, or of course you could hoard your gifts and use then to multiply your own opportunities.

[Picture on opposite side: purpose = human suffering ]
[ideas: person on the street, refugee camp, medical conditions]