Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Why does it feel like no matter how much we achieve, how much we have, it's never enough?
That we always want more and we feel we're entitled to things, we expect things, if we don't get them, we get upset. And even if we have things, we still want more things.
Today we're diving into how entitlement expectation, a never ending desire for things, robs us of our joy and peace and happiness, fulfillment, contentment, and what we can do to experience higher levels of joy, happiness, freedom and wealth right now. So welcome, welcome, welcome.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Hello, Michael.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Hello, hello. How are you doing?
[00:00:47] Speaker B: I'm doing great. Great. Fabulous day, fabulous year, fabulous everything.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Yeah, we are blessed on many, many, many levels. But we could be thinking about things we don't have, couldn't we? And making ourselves miserable.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Yes, we could do that.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Should we do that instead?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: We could do that, right? It's not the most effective way of living, but we could do that.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the best ways to be miserable is to think about everything you don't have, everything you want, everything that's unfair about the world, and to think about it again and again and again. Write lists and lists and lists and spend large amounts of time looking at things you don't have.
It's a guaranteed misery method. So if you want to suffer more, then that's what to do. But if we're not going to do that. Shreem, why did you inspire this particular podcast? What was your inspiration for this topic? This is your idea.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: I've deeply been thinking about desire and how desire is connected with entitlement and how entitlement is connected with gratitude and how gratitude is connected with dissatisfaction and all of those things.
Comparison, how entitlement actually is connected with comparison. I've been deeply thinking about these things.
We could start with a desire, right? So what is interesting about desire is the object of your desire decides how you feel about it.
So it's not that we shouldn't have desires, but depending on what kind of desires we have, then that's how you will feel.
And so let's say I have a desire for money, then I will feel differently. Let's say I have desire for fame, I will feel differently.
Let's say I have desire for giving, love, giving, then I will feel differently.
So it's really good to have desire for these very high level things because the way I feel about it is going to be very different.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: So you're saying that whatever you desire, whatever the object, this type of desire is, affects your feeling about the thing.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Affects you and yes. Right. So.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: So, so depending on the.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: So the quality, like give me a not so good desire.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: I don't know, Getting revenge.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Okay, Getting revenge. Right. So if you have desire for revenge, you're going to feel really, you know, all bent out of shape and all caught up and obsessed with that. Right, right. And it's not a very happy state to be. It's not a very peaceful state to be. So that's how you. You'll feel.
And give me another good desire.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Well, an interesting one that a lot of people have is money. Right. Desire for money. Because we obviously have to buy things in the world. We can't. Yes.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: We need to pay bills and all of that. Absolutely.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And have nice quality of life and everything. So what, what can. How do you. I mean, let me. This is something I thought about a lot. Money in itself is fine, but the interesting thing about money is you can't get it directly unless you rob a bank, which is of course, probably not going to work out very well. So interestingly enough, the only way to really get money is to have a desire to serve others and in which case they will exchange money. The service for money isn't that interesting, the desire for money.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: We could rob bags. We could really study how to rob banks.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's not the. Normally the topic of the podcast, but we could do a podcast on it. How to Rob bank in 2025. But, but it's, it's going to be our number one podcast.
So. But it's interesting. I've thought a lot about this. With money, the desire for money itself won't lead to the outcome, whereas the desire to be of service leads to the outcome of wealth, if it's done in the right way.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: See, and how you feel also is different. Right. If you just think, oh, let me buy a lottery ticket and just get some money. Right. You. The feeling about money is going to be very different. That desire is going to be very different from. Let me be of service.
Right. So your desire decides how you feel. Like there are two things you could say. There is you and the object of your desire. In this case, let's say money. Right. And you.
So both actually decide how you're going to feel about it. You know, like the, the resulting feelings and emotions around it both decide this.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: That's right. So how you feel and the desire you have, depending on what that is, you're going to have an internal feeling state.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Exactly.
And so now let's talk about us. Right.
Not the object of your desire, but us.
If I have a sense of entitlement, say I deserve more. I, you know, and I used to work in corporate America and I used to see this a lot.
Is this entitlement? And thankfully, thankfully I was already on my spiritual path and I was very, very busy taking care of a center. So I didn't want like the promotions they wanted or I didn't want the bonuses they wanted and, and all of that, right? I remember one time, two of my colleagues, I mean, I didn't get much of a bonus that year because anyway, it's a long story.
You had to buy into the stock of the company and I didn't. And so the bonus was based on how much you buy into the stock of the company and also your performance, right? Your performance during the whole year. So I was talking to one of my colleagues and he really wanted this bonus. He really wanted this bonus. He really wanted this bonus. He kept talking about it, you know, from September onwards and the bonuses usually came around November. And you know, he was like, oh, you know, if I get this much of a bonus, I will be happy. If I get this much of a bonus, I will be happy, right? 5,000, 10,000. I don't remember the number, but something like that. If I get $5,000, I'll be very happy.
Every time we went to lunch, that's all he spoke about.
And you know, this is what I'm going to buy, I need a new car, all of those things, right? And then another person in the company also got a bonus. So when bonuses time came around, everyone got their bonuses. And it is a closed thing. You don't really know who's getting which bonus, who's getting how much of a bonus. But our admin assistant, she decided to leak it because they were friends, right? Did you know this other person got, he got $5,000 and the other person got $7,000.
So he was very happy for a minute or two, right? Oh, I got 5,000 because I really wanted this bonus. And then when this got leaked, right? The other person got 7,000 dol. He was so miserable.
He was so miserable. I was like, what happened? What happened to your happiness, right? In this whole idea of fairness, whole idea of comparison, whole idea of entitlement, I deserve more than what he got. And many times what we don't realize is there reward is not dependent on your effort, right? Like we are somehow mixing these things, your effort and their reward, right? Whatever their reward is their reward based on their effort. And whatever your reward is you based on your effort. But we decide, oh my, I worked so hard. So why did they get it doesn't work that way.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: That doesn't make any sense.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: No. And I think that ruined his holidays and his bonus.
And so I always think about that, this idea of comparison, it's fair, it's not fair.
When I say it's not fair, what I'm generally saying, usually when people say it's not fair, what I'm usually saying, it's not favorable to me.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: That's what it really means.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Yes. Because you know, life about, you know, you have to trust. You have to trust that life is fair and you will get what you really put your effort into. Heart into it. You have to trust because you can't keep comparing. You can't keep feeling you deserve more. You can't keep doing that because it's just never ending cycle of you go into a, you know, a bottomless pit where you can't come out.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And according to who and according to what as well?
There's a psychological study that I learned many years ago based on pretty much exactly what you're saying, where they've done loads and loads of tests with hundreds of people. Right? So the game is like this. You have two people sitting across from each other and they have a hundred dollar one hundred in like five dollar bills.
And person A decides how to split the money and person B decides whether yay or nay. If the person B says yes, then the split is done and they keep the money. And if person B says no, then no one gets the money.
Right. Interesting study, right? So let's say so if it's 50, 50, right. The other person goes, great, and then they take 50 bucks, the other person takes 50 bucks. 60, 40. The other person might be like, yeah, I'll take 40, you know, that's okay. As soon as it gets down to somewhere around 30 or $20, the person on the other side says, no, it's not fair. I'd rather I don't have 30 bucks to make sure you don't get 70.
Right. And most people, not all of them, but majority of people would, would go, no, I, I'm, I refuse that they get 70 if I'm only getting 30 or 20. Isn't that interesting.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Right. And we are not noticing that we are losing too.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: They don't realize because this, this fairness thing is so deep and so profound that it throws people off completely.
Right. So we have to ask ourselves if so and so got this amount of money.
Okay, fair enough. But what did I get? Right? I mean, there's the example in this book, the gap in the game with the cookie. There was one cookie, and all these kids, and they only had one cookie. Oh, give me cookie. Cookie, cookies. They broke the cookie up into different pieces. And of course, you can't cut a cookie exactly correctly with your hand. And one of the kids got the smaller piece, and he was extremely miserable after getting that smaller piece of the cookie beforehand. He was very happy and he wanted some cookie. And then once he got his cookie, he wasn't happy at all because it was the smallest piece relative to everyone else, right? This is going on all the time. All the time. Like, the same thing with airplane tickets or buying products. Like, if you go on Amazon, you might buy a product today, and then it's on sale tomorrow, right? You're like, oh, my God, I lost all this money, but you got the thing, right? Like, even the Camp Serene and I both bought these expensive cameras, and now they've dropped, like a thousand bucks or something, right? Does that mean we should be like, oh, God, it's so unfair?
You know, we're like, no, this. They're great. We love our cameras.
So this is. This is like a background madness happening. And there's an interesting book, actually, I pulled it out. It's called the Power of Choice, Paradox of Choice.
And it's a great book. And the author basically says that in our modern society, there's way too many choices. So, like, if you could buy a computer, should you buy this one? Should you get this much ram, this much hard drive? You know, if you buy an iPad, how many different versions are there, different specs and all this stuff? So people. Can't. They compare, compare, compare, compare. And you've got so many comparisons, you can't actually figure out which is the best one, because there isn't a best one. Even with cars. Like, if I got this car, then that would be fine, but this car has this feature, and this car has this thing.
So if you have less choices, if you only have two choices and. And you say, you know what? It doesn't matter that much. End of the day. End of the day, it does the job and it's good to go, then we can be happy, we can be very grateful.
But if we continuously look at all the 50,000 other options, then even when we get something very useful, we feel emotionally dissatisfied.
And this. This can happen to all the purchases we have and all the people in our lives and all the things that we watch, right? Oh, if I hadn't watched this, then I could have watched that. If I hadn't done this, then I could have done this. And if I hadn't met this person, I would have met this person.
And so it just goes on and on and on. And this is one of the major obstacles for Joy in our wonderful American consumer culture.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: You know, more than choice, I feel comparison.
Comparison with someone else, and especially comparison of. It could be something very simple, right? Like, it could be simple as yard.
Like, you know, I'm comparing my yard to that yard, my neighbor's yard, which really is really good.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: He does a bad job. He does such a good job. He does such a great job.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: He does a great job. He's retired, and that's all he does. He just comes out and it's green and nice. And then our yard is not exactly grass. It's weed. And every time I tell people, okay, we are mowing the weeds. But also, that's the way I want it, right? I don't want to put all kinds of weed killers and stuff. And if you don't put weed killers, just weeds come up.
And I was. I think I was talking to you one day, and I was saying, see, my neighbor's yard is so good. And look at my. Look at our yard. It's so bad. And he looked at. You looked at it, and you said, oh, I think this is a classic case of the grass is greener on the other side because your yard is fine, right? Yeah, literally, grass is greener because your yard is fine. So the comparison, Right, that comparison. I remember one time with tomatoes. They're these Florida heirloom tomatoes. They're really tiny ones.
Someone gave us seeds, and we put it in, right? And I gave seeds to one of my neighbors. It was in the other house, and we grew tomatoes. And I absolutely ate one of the tomatoes. And I fell in love with them. Like, they are a burst of flavor in your mouth, right? And they grow in these tiny little things, and it's amazing. They're really tiny. And you think, oh, my God, such a tiny bomb. How can a flavor be so thin? Right? And I was very happy. And then I went over to my neighbors and I saw her tomatoes.
They were really much better than mine. Well, obviously, at that point, I realized I don't have a green thumb. But then I started feeling bad because I was comparing. I was like, oh, my God, look at her tomatoes. And look at my tomatoes and this and that, right?
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Oh, God.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: I came back and I actually meditated on this. Oh, my God, look at her tomatoes. And then in the meditation sends God into me and I said, okay, if I want to feel good about my tomatoes, I need to share them.
If I share these tomatoes, then I will feel good.
If I compare, not good.
And so that's what I did. I shared my tomatoes and then I felt good.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: That's beautiful. Yes, it's the comparison, isn't it? We have too much choice, too many options. And then we compare against other options, whether it's people's tomatoes or other products or other opportunities. Even if someone's like, oh, I'm going to go on a trip to Thailand, and then someone, they see someone who's in Laos or India that, oh, I should have gone to India, it's like we're continuously not being here with what is.
And one of the best ways to overcome this major problem is to reduce our expectations down to zero.
This is an extremely high level spiritual practice.
In our Raj Yoga meditation, there's a term becoming zero or zero point. In other words, when you don't have anything, before we came in the world, we were just in deep, deep, deep peace. And we didn't even have a body and we didn't even think anything.
Completely liberated, right. I mean, in a way, that's such the highest state of being, right. So in that state, you haven't got anything, but you also are very, very relaxed and blissful.
And then imagine coming from zero into the world and now everything is extra. It's all like, wow, you know, there's a tree here and there's this piece of paper and Shereen's here and there's this podcast and there's this tea. You realize, like you've got massive amount of wealth, right? From zero.
So you go from zero to wealth, right. That that immediately brings this sense of wonder and abundance into life, right? That's, that's the comparison. We need to have zero to where we are.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Rather than from someone else's expectation or even our own idea of what we should have, and then backwards down to where we are.
Right.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: You know, there is one thing I always do is I always compare 200 years ago to now.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Yes, sir. Almost zero point, isn't it? Similar. Similar idea. Yeah. Think, let's, let's go over the difference between 200 years ago to now. This is very, very important.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: So 200 years ago, let's say I'm a woman woman and I'm having a child, right. There's a high percentage of women who died in childbirth.
Right. And so I could totally be, you know, not survive that. You Know, ordeal of giving birth.
And also the child itself need not survive because infant mortality was very high. And then you had all of these other diseases. And let's forget if you had a toothache, you didn't have anything except like maybe opium or something to satiate, you know, get rid of the ache. You didn't have good, you know, dental hygiene at that point. You didn't have a shower, shower, a warm shower.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: What a blessing that is.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: And so many things. Like I didn't have the option of being financially independent if I'm a woman and if I wasn't born into wealth, then forget it, my life wouldn't be those that great, you know, and it was okay if I. Let's say I was a maid somewhere.
You know, the quality of life was not that great. So all of those things, right? And now let's say fast forward 200 years, we have medical care, kind of, but we have medical care that really works, you know, Hardly. People are dying of, you know, mothers are dying or children are dying or whatever it is, right?
And so if someone told me 200 years ago, if someone told me 200 years ago, there is a place in the future, actually, they're just a place. Just let's say there's a place on another planet. And in that planet you have showers, you have, you know, financial independence, you have health care. You're not dying, you are healthy, you have good teeth, you have. Your children are not dying. You know, all of these things, right? All of these things.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: You can choose who you marry.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: You can choose who you marry or not marry.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: You have all these choices. There's an endless entertainment interested. You could travel, you can go on planes, you can do every. Like this is just, just remarkable, like how easy it is. We're living better than kings did 200 years ago, right? Yeah.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: And so if someone told me that, I would have said, oh my God, that's heaven.
I would have said that.
But now that I'm here, am I saying it's heaven?
No, because I've decided, my mind has decided to make a prison out of this.
By comparison, by feeling entitled, by being jealous, by not having gratitude for what we have, we are making a prison out of a palace.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: It's like we have to readjust our thinking again and again and again. Because the human mind seems to very, very, very quickly readjust to the new normal and then have upward comparison. It just seems to like, just even if someone from 200 years ago, right, time traveled here, they would be in awe and wonder. They would be like absolutely amazed, probably for about six months or maybe even less. And then they'd think, hang on a minute, I haven't got all this stuff that these other people have got. That that's what would happen. The same thing happens with people apparently who defect from North Korea to South Korea, right. They're just like, in wonder of it, but then they kind of readjust and. And then they start having the same sort of problems that everyone else has after a while. And sometimes they even miss certain things because everyone's so consumerist mindset, so. Which is a bit of weird situation. But we have to consciously, if we want to be happy, if our. If our aim in life is to be happy and joyful and appreciate things, drop the comparison down to zero, realize you're a spiritual being and imagine that you don't have anything and then come back into it and go, wow, look at all this stuff. One of the best things I like to do every year is to do a space clearing, which is of course a. A capitalist problem, Right. We all have too much stuff after a while, right? So then people garage sales and giving it to thrift stores and everything.
So when I go through the things that I have, I'm like, oh, my God, look at all this stuff. I've. Because I've. Because, you know, when it's like in cupboards or like on shelves or whatever, you can't see it anymore and you go through it, you go, wow, look at all the wealth. Look at all this stuff. This is incredible. Right? So we're all surrounded by all sorts of opportunities, wealth, physical things that are very useful, clothes. We're just. Just like almost drowning in blessings in many ways. And it's up to us to fully take advantage of it rather than think, oh, gosh, what's next? Oh, but I don't have what so and so has. And I think this is why Insight Instagram and social media is so toxic for people.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Because they might be in a wonderful situation, right. And they're sitting there scrolling, oh, but so and so's on the beach having a better time than me. So and so's got better food than I have. Oh, this person's traveled around. And then even if you're happy, you're not happy.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Yeah, Especially because that's so. I mean, they have shown, right? They have shown that it's all fake many times.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it is fake. A lot of the influencers have actually come out and said this photograph where I looked like I was happy on the beach. I was Miserable. It took me four hours to get the shot. I felt terrible at this shot. Looked like I was at a fun party, but it was all just staged and I really was depressed and just had a terrible headache and, you know, go back to back to back to back.
It's all fake. Not necessarily 100% of it, but the point is, we're having our own life, so can't we enjoy our life rather than looking at someone else's life?
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Absolutely. People will do anything to get views and clicks, and so we shouldn't believe that. But more. More than that, right? I mean, let's take social media out of the picture, but. And you should also take social media out of the picture. Don't believe everything you say, which I'm sure all of you are very sensible, and you don't. Because that's.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: But it's on the Internet, Shireen. It must be true.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Let's not talk about what people do when they read something on the Internet. Let's not talk about that.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: It's on the Internet. Yeah, it's on the Internet. It must be true.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Yes. There's a secret I know about Brother Michael which I will not share.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: I read it on the Internet.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: You read it on the Internet. Anyway.
Anyway, you want to talk about that, right? But one thing for sure that we can do is. I know everyone says about gratitude, be grateful, be grateful.
But trust with gratitude. Trust that whatever you need will come to you. And if you put the right amount of effort, things will happen. Don't compare your effort to other people's reward. Their effort and their reward is theirs. Your effort and your reward is yours. So just try to put in the effort and the reward will happen. Trust that. Right? Apart from gratitude, which everyone talks about gratitude, but you need to trust this.
Trust that the universe, whatever you want to call it, right?
Higher power universe, whatever you want to call it, will manifest for you.
But it will only manifest. We are in the right space because we attract. If I feel I'm blessed, then I will attract blessings.
If I feel I don't have, then I will not attract that. So come from this. Not this frustration and comparison and jealousy, but trust. Trust that things will happen. That's one. And two is. Remember, your mind can be a prison or a palace, prison or a palace. It's. The choice is yours. So forget about all of the other fake choices that are there. You go to the store and you have 10 choices for potatoes.
Just the other day I went to get potatoes and I really, literally had 10 different options, right? For potatoes like Yukon gold and this, that and that. You dress it yellow and.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Yeah, you need 15.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: I need 15 options.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: And then different sweet potatoes and then different.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: So forget about. Those are fake choices. Those are not real choices.
The real choice is the choice you make with your mind. What do you choose to think? That is the choice.
And so think about those things. Think about your. You have a choice to not go into a pit of comparison. Entitlement, jealousy, all of that. You have a choice and make the choice not to do that. And make the choice to make your mind into a palace.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you do have comparison, right, Here's a trick you can use to get rid of it is to be inspired instead of being jealous, right? Let's say someone has more things and you're jealous about them, right? Or whatever it is, they're happier or whatever. Say, what can I do to turn that energy into inspiration to do more stuff, to make a bigger difference, to get the next level.
Do you know? I mean, because that. Then. Because we can improve our life, right? And there's nothing wrong with. With going to higher levels of anything in our life as long as it's coming from a good place. So you can turn it around. So I don't need to be jealous. I can be inspired, you know, like, even in spiritual things. I'm sure you've seen this, Shereen. People, they're on the similar thing, and they're jealous about someone else on a spiritual path. So this happens to people, not just physically, more money and. But with spirituality, this person's doing more service, this person's happier than I am, or whatever it is. Be inspired by them and say, can I glean the virtues and the experiences they have and then use that as something that can turn into my own joy and happiness and abundance? Yay. So have fun with all this blessing.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: And also excuse the noise around here when I. This is almost outside, and it's impossible, you would think at this time of the day, people are not doing other stuff, but anyway, they are.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: People have every right to bang and bang their pots because everyone goes outside and starts banging pots and pans straight away once the podcast gets started. That's just how it works.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: I'm going to pick a random number.
Integrity.
You've made your core values the centerpiece of all you do, living them out faithfully and gracefully. You have conviction in the power of patience and sacrifice because you know there is no greater currency than a clear conscience.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Very deep. So thank you for being here.
Have a beautiful week and wonderful sense of abundance. Count your blessings, realize that everything is a fascinating game and hopefully you can experience more joy, happiness and freedom rather than wanting all these things.
We're surrounded in abundance. Lots of love. Talk to you soon.
Yay.
