Response to PAMELA HICKMAN Wk4-Reading: Chapters 9-12

Created by Jacqueline Jones using ToonDoo.

@ Pam,

I feel your pain.  I have lost 2 siblings – my Sisters.  One was the result of a long time illness and the other was unexpectedly.  They were both young at the time. You point is what can we do to help others facing similar circumstances or prevent something that can be prevented.  What you describe in your post is ‘entitlement.”  I know in our discussion this week we were posed with the question about deserving our dream job.  To me, deserving something and entitlement are two different things. According to www.dictionary.com, deserve is defined as something to be worthy of or qualified for.  On the other hand, entitlement has more to do with having to right to something based on a preset criteria such as the law.  Billy Preston sang a song that says that nothing from nothing leaves nothing.  That is it in a nutshell.

Pam said in her blogspot:

http://pamelahickman.blogspot.com/2011/02/week-4-blog-post-2-art-of-posibilities.html

“This weeks reading was very good. I would have to say the whole book was very good I liked how it talks about like possibilities from every angle imaginable. I really enjoyed chapter 10 talking about our life being a game board. It seems like my students over the past couple of years have this sense of "entitlement" there is no self responsibility anywhere. I have noticed students will say "that teacher gave me an F" instead of "I earned an F in math." This generation of kids are looking to blame someone every time something goes wrong in their life. I like how the booked refers to life a board and we are going to make choices and mistakes, but we have to learn from them. Sometimes we have to put our pride to the side and say "yes this is my fault how do I fix it?" I try to teach my students you are not entitled to anything the successes you get in life are earned, but so many students think that they are going to make millions of dollars have a perfect life without hard work. I hate to say this but that is not reality.  People in general want to blame diffrent people for hardship and bad things, but the ugly truth is sometime we make mistakes and have to learn from them.

I lost my brother four years ago to this "game" called the choking game. I was so heartbroken over the lose of my brother. I just wanted to blame the kids that showed him how to "play." I wanted to blame the God, but I didn't want to blame him for doing it. I guess we never want to blame the people we love for bad things that hurt us. The ugly truth was my bother made the choice to play and the consequence was that he died at 19-years-old. I guess in that first year of losing my brother I just wanted life to stop and people to just piety my situation. I got alone with God and my Bible and realized life hasn't stopped people will not continue to piety my situation. I began to think OK this has happened know what can I do to make a difference. My family and I began to give speeches to youth groups in churches in the area about the dangers of the "Choking Game." My family and I didn't want this to happen to another family so we are trying to make a difference through educating parents and teens on the deadly game. My challenge to everyone is this when God allows bad things to happen to you use it to help others. God allows bad things to happen to good people because He knows that we can handle the bad thing and use it for His Glory.”