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I deserve it…
These words will jump out at me when I am driving or just mindless watching television and commercials and they are flogging whatever new shiny (and most likely unnecessary) toy. The commercial will be going on about the products unparalleled comfort, coolness or whatever and then end saying… “you deserve this”.
Man, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth like drinking old milk… it is just so blatantly manipulative.”
Oh, I see, so I should give you my money because you think I deserve to buy your good/service! Very convenient for your wallet.”
The words “you deserve it” are historically significant in the world of advertising and marketing and consistently used in marketing to convince people to buy things. The more I think about this concept of “I deserve it”, the less and less it makes any definitive sense.
“Do I deserve that?”
“By who’s standard? Is there some great being with a big book or agency staffed with a bunch of angels carefully keeping track of who deserves what?”
“What about people more in need than me? Doesn’t a homeless child deserve a meal more than I deserve a new car?”
Philosophical ruminations aside, it’s not practical to live your life according to “what you deserve”.
“Things that you deserve” is like “things you need”. There are a lot of them, they multiply like cockroaches and once crushed are usually just replaced by higher level needs and at some point extravagantly consuming will not even meet those needs.
Plus, most of us would probably go bankrupt before getting close to meeting our “needs” (or in more entitled terms – “deserved things”).
The key principle when handling needs is prioritizing. What do you need most?
Is your top priority really that luxury car? Or is it the peace of mind in having an emergency fund worth 3 months of expense?
Is your top need that expensive international vacation? Or is it being able to sleep at night because you are’t in crushing debt?
Do you deserve a bigger home with constricting mortgage payments and being home poor? Or do you deserve a life of mobility and financial resiliency with a manageable mortgage or even rented apartment?
My advice is that next time your hear the siren call of modern day marketing telling you that you deserve that new shiny, cool and absolutely unnecessary item, remind yourself of this…
Yes, that is nice and I do deserve that, but…. there are much more important things I deserve first like financial solvency and financial stability. I’ll take those first.