The Entitlement Society We Should Cultivate

Reason #4,268 to read the Anchoress (emphasis added):

A few years before my brother died, he became ill and needed a very minor procedure. Without it, he would likely get worse and die. The doctors were shocked when my sister and I said, “of course we want you to do it.” To them it seemed like a no-brainer: who would want a life so reduced in quality? “It’s the life he has,” we said, “and he’s entitled to it. It may not be the life you think you’d want, but he loves music, and he has friends he laughs with, and he watches his tv shows and likes to sit outside and draw and listen to the birds. He loves flowers. It’s his life! No one is entitled to take it from him.” One of us even said — and I am not sure who, because either of us are capable of being this direct: “one day this might be all the life you have, and you might find yourself wanting to live it, even if others can’t see the point.”

They didn’t like it, but they did the procedure and my brother lived for four more years before passing in his sleep. They were his years, even if they made no sense to anyone else, and he was entitled to them.

Read the rest.