The WWII Marines of K/3/5 had been fighting on Guadalcanal for weeks. C-rations had run out, and the men ate twice daily portions of coconuts and wormy rice they’d confiscated from the Japanese.
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| Actor Ashton Holmes (l) portrayed a young Sid Phillips (r) in The Pacific. Photo courtesy Valor Studios. |
PFC Sid Phillips (featured in HBO’s The Pacific) grew increasingly concerned for his hometown friend, W.O. Brown, racked with severe dysentery. Everything W.O. tried to eat ran straight through him. There was no medicine. No cots to lie on. The sick were simply stretched out on the ground. W.O. grew so emaciated he was too weak even to sit up. Flies covered him as he lay in his own diarrhea.
“It was bad,” Phillips reported in an interview with me. “I didn’t think W.O. was going to survive.”
Each day, Phillips carried W.O. to the ocean and helped him get clean. I asked Phillips if he remembered any specific conversations he had with W.O. during these times of carrying him. Here, I was expecting a poignant story. I pictured this young battle-hardened Marine carrying his nearly-dead buddy to the water. “Keep holding on,” Phillips would whisper. “Have courage. Just think of mom and apple pie.” Something like that.
But Phillips just chuckled. “Oh yeah, I remember. I told W.O. to stop being such a faker and take a salt tablet.”
The response threw me. I asked Phillips (who eventually became a medical doctor) what his strategy was.
“Well, it didn’t help a man to overly commiserate with him,” Phillips said. “If you did, it just depressed him. But if you kidded him, it made him smile. The ribbing was all good natured. He’d fire back some wisecrack at you, and soon he’d get to fighting again.”
How does this apply to leadership today?
Phillips respected W.O. Brown as someone who had the capacity to get up and go on. So let’s believe the same about ourselves.
Anytime a man is in a downed place—i.e. he’s annoyed, angry, tired, hurt, lonely, stressed, or frustrated—he is tempted to become overly sympathetic with himself. He gets that insidious, creepy, pampering mindset that tells him he deserves a break—just this once.
I’m not talking about kicking back on the couch with a bag of Doritos. Not that kind of a break.
I’m talking about blowing it: the lie that it’s okay to run to a favorite vice. We’ve all got them. We run to whatever ultimately harms us, because we’ve convinced ourselves it helps. It’s the worst form of coddling.
What’s the solution?
Get tough with yourself. Knock it off, ya faker. Take a salt tablet, and get back to the battle. Sure, frustrations exist. But you don’t need that bottle. You don’t need that porn. You don’t need to give in to that moment of rage on the freeway. You’ve only convinced yourself you do.
By the way, the strategy works. W.O. Brown survived the dysentery—and the war.
Question: How have you seen entitlement thinking creep into people’s lives today? In addition to adopting a no-coddling mindset, what’s the solution?
16 comments:
I see this across generations, but especially with young men today. We have so failed to challenge our sons that they think any hardship is unfair. No surprise then, since leadership is hardship, that so many choose not to lead well.
Hey Marcus,
unfortunately my english is pretty poor when it comes to understand your question. I interpret it this way:
what kind of sense of entitlement do people have these days? And how do they develop such kind of sense. In addition, how can you create yourself a no-cuddling mindset?
Am I right, interpreting it this way?
T
Well, as a 25 year old, I have seen my friends and family have only one entitlement problem; mostly it is a jobs one. We feel like we did everything right, and now we deserve work. We did go through 16 years of tough schooling and now no-one is giving us a chance. Its not like we don't want a job or that I want to live with my mom, its that there are none out there to have and we feel cheated.
Before you say, 'Well, just work at McDonalds then, are you too good for that?', please try actually applying for a waiter or a mechanic or some other job. One, we never had shop class and we have no skills and no-one to teach them to us besides grey-beards, remember most of my generation never had a father in the house. Two, we have applied anyways, there just isn't any work. It took me 2100 applications to get my job. Also, I can guarantee you that every graduate is racking their brains to become the next Zuckerberg already. We are fighting for the scraps down here.
So, what is the solution to this entitlement issue. Damned if I know kimosabe. You know anyone looking to hire?
One solution is true accountability, people who don't believe your lies or coddling and call you on it.
I'd have to say that the answer is love. One has got to stand at teh end of each day and answer the question, how did I love today. It may be found in coddling or it may be found in calling one out, just depends on what is called for in the situation. From your story, it sounds like Phillips did both, carried a man daily to the well and didn't give into the depth of depravity that was felt by W.O. Well done I say. As for Rob, thanks for being honest. What kind of work do you want to do?
I worked for years as a securities enforcement attorney and defendants invariably rationalized why it was acceptable to lie and mislead others about investments. They would pretty much say anything to get their hands on someone else's money and see no problem with doing what they pleased with it. Prison time doesn't seem to help. The only solution I've come up with for stopping them from giving into this "vice" (which also happens to be a felony) is doing everything possible to keep them from gaining access to it, that is, keep them from getting their hands on other people's money.
In general, self pity is always dangerous. Anyone finding themselves wallowing in it needs to redirect their attention to their goal and keep aiming for it in ways that they can always be proud of.
Great comments, everybody. Thank you.
Tobi--I appreciate it when people from other countries who don't natively speak English come on this site. Thank you for your comment.
In English, "cuddling," means to treat something with affection. Like, you'd cuddle a dog.
"Coddling," is to treat something with a lot of indulgence. To pamper. Like, you might coddle a child if she's sick.
In the case of this article, the word is used negatively.
Self-coddling is the tendency to be weak willed. It's to insist we need something, even when that thing ultimately harms us.
One key is self respect. Know that you have what it takes to resist temptation, get up and get on with your good intentions.
You got it.
Steve--yeah, I've seen this too.
Like today every kid gets a trophy for being on a soccer team. You get awarded for participation, rather than accomplishment.
This might sound good initially--we want everybody to feel good about playing a sport.
But the problem is that it's too easy to grow up expecting trophies every time you show up for something.
Great post Marcus.
It seems that the issue of entitlement has pretty much invaded every aspect of our culture. We have employees who feel they should be able to wear their slippers at work because they deserve to be comfortable (and should have a ping pong table in the breakroom since Google does it); high school kids who think they deserve a new car at 16 and a $70,000/year job straight out of college, because they've always been told, "You can be anything you want to be"; and husbands and wives leaving each other because their spouse doesn't make them happy anymore. "Don't I deserve to be happy?" is the question heard and sentiment expressed throughout our culture.
I don't think there's an easy answer, but I think we can start with some honesty. With kids as they grow up, what should we be saying when the 4'11" kid says he wants to be an NBA player? "You can do it, Johnny! You can be whatever you want to be!", or looking at his or her skills and encouraging them to think realistically? With the husband whose wife maybe isn't as sexy as their wedding day (or the wife whose husband isn't as romantic as when they were dating), why do we say, "You deserve to be happy" instead of, "Get off your arse and start investing in your marriage and thinking of someone besides yourself! You've got a spouse and maybe kids who are depending on you to follow through with the commitment you made at the altar!"
Phillips was a true friend - like you said, he didn't coddle him because he knew it wouldn't help him. I wish more people recognized the truth that this friendship illustrates.
I have a buddy who has been enough of a friend over the past 28 years to have challenged me, chewed me out for whining, even punched me when I've been an idiot! And I've done the same to him. We all need that kind of friend. I'm glad W.O. Brown had that.
Bob, what wise words. Thank you.
Rob ... (comment near the top). I've thought about your comment most of this day.
One of the cool things you talk about is your persistence. Wow, 2,100 job applications. That alone says much about your character.
I certainly can identify with that feeling you're expressing here--of being out of college with education, skills, talent, and drive, and yet nobody's beating down your door to hire you. Absolutely I've been there.
Maybe that's some consolation. You're not alone in that feeling.
Best to you. --MB
Marcus,
thank you very much for explaining it to me. Not I got it 100% right.
In my case I have to struggle nearly every day with self-pityess. Since a couple of months I'm fighting against serious pain in my back. Since a couple of weeks now it already goes in my legs and feet. I'm in pain every day. For example today, I scraped through to get to from my car to my desk at work. There are only 300 meters to cover, but every step hell gets nearer. Some days it's better some days it's worse.
The thing is I already did a couple of therapies, I was working out, got a couple of cortison infusions right to the nerve of my spine...but in the end the pain is still there.
Some days the self-coddling wins, and I'm looking for compassion. But since you Marcus opened this blog I fight more and more. So last week I got good news from an other doctor I visited. He said with the right physiotherapy I'm going to be me again. It just takes time. So I try to hang tough.
------
I almost forgot, don't dare to write anything compassionate.
T
"You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on." Samuel Beckett
Marcus,
Thank you, it does help to have another take on it. I'm doing alright currently, its my friends and siblings that are hurting right now. Lord knows I can be back in their shoes any time and they can be in mine. Right now, I'm the one that gets to pay to help them, I just hope that they can help me when the roles reverse. Life is luck.
Hi Marcus, as a teacher at an elementary school I see it everyday.
There is a sense of entitlement among most kids.
I remember telling them that I collected soda bottles for 2 cents a piece as a boy for spending money and looked at me like " you must be kidding". I was reading a book about prairie life to the kids and one of the homes in the paintings had a wood wall with cracks in it. One of the kids commented he would never stay in a home like that.
It absolutely scares me. People with I-pods and cell phones playing games in restaurants instead of speaking with each other.
I was in a situation where I wanted to confront someone who was ruining my name and I was told not to. It would take to long and might harm my career. As Bill Guarnere said" now of days you go after the bad guy and they are arresting you". That in itself is a sense of entitlement " I can so or do what I want and there won't be a consequence".
As a nation we have lost our way, creativity in children has decreased since the 70's. No one innovates anymore, items are now disposable. I had a winter coat sewn two years ago due to a tear and someone asked me why I just did not buy a new one. I answered honestly, I did not have the money for one and got a puzzled look.
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