[2022-12-28] Getting what you deserve
Today, Dr. Bertice Berry, an American sociologist, author and speaker, posted a story on getting what you deserve. She recounts going to a house by the ocean with her daughter after having worked extra hard in the lead-up to their vacation. When they arrived, Bertice took a look around and sat down, then said to her daughter, Fatima:
— Ummm....
— It's not up to your standards, is it?
— Could you read my mind?
— I think you were clutching pearls, and you didn't even have any on.
— Well maybe we can just push through.
— Mom, you push through work. You pushed through us.... You don't push through a vacation.... You've worked too hard all of your life to sit in a situation that's not up to the standard.
— You're right. And it kinda smells in here.
— What does it smell like, Mom?
— Shame.
After they stopped laughing, they put their things back in the car, and Fatima said:
— Mom, I love that you teach me to get what I deserve.
— Really? Am I teaching you that?
— Did you just not see what just happened?
Bertice's message is this: "Sometimes we don't realize that the cost to let something go is not nearly as taxing as the cost of staying."
I thought of some of the big decisions in my life: leaving a job for the first time, saying goodbye to a department after 28 years, taking medical leave, retiring, opting for radiation treatment. All of these transitions were challenging, but ultimately less difficult than staying where I was or doing nothing.
Bertice's call to action is this: "This year, make a list of what you deserve—not what you desire—what you think you deserve, and give yourself that. You can't get to the desires if you don't even believe what you deserve."
While it was challenging enough to come up with a list of things I deserve (great medical treatment, love, respect), it was even more difficult to restrict the list to things I could give myself. However, as I contemplated that further, I realized that the way we give ourselves what we deserve is by asking for it—for example, advocating for ourselves with healthcare professionals, choosing to be around people who love and accept us, setting boundaries for how we are treated.
In that house by the ocean—the house that smelled like shame—Bertice and her daughter took the only step they could, in that moment, to get what they were entitled to: they walked away.
Sometimes walking away is the only way to get what we deserve. Other times, simply asking for what we deserve delivers the desired result. It all starts from believing, deep down, that we are worthy of good things in our lives.
