Key takeaway: You have inalienable rights that are always yours no matter what. Know your rights, know your power.

The word “entitled” has a misleading bad connotation. It might conjure up thoughts of white male privilege or a spoiled rich kid who expects everything but never has to work  to earn it. Entitlement is looked down upon. Entitled is what you don’t want to be.

Let’s reconsider the word.

Entitled really refers to privileges that are your inherent rights as a human being. You were born with inalienable rights, as in they can’t be taken from you by any means, ever. They can’t be taken from you by someone saying so, or by some law that’s passed, or by a social label imposed on you. You don’t have to do anything to “earn” them. There’s nothing you can do to lose them. You always have them simply by existing. They are completely yours to exercise all your life.

Why we forget our entitlements

All babies know they have these entitlements. As you grow, you forget about them under pressure and expectations from society, your parents, your friends and teachers at school, your coworkers, the media, your own brainwashed inner voice, and countless external sources. You were explicitly told and/or made to feel small, inferior, disempowered. They said it was your age, your race, your gender, your ethnicity, your nationality, your family income, your looks, your education, your house value, your neighborhood, or any other imaginary metric people assign to your worth in order to justify lowering it.

Somewhere along the way, you forgot your inalienable rights. You forgot them for so long that you might not know you ever had them.

If you don’t know you have them, you can’t feel their power. You walk around silent, muted, invisible, scared to be heard and seen. This is especially true growing up with Viet parents and elders at home, then hiding your Viet identity to fit into mainstream culture outside the home. The world demanded and trained you to please everyone at the expense of yourself.

This is a reminder of your entitlements so that you can live more freely, happily, authentically, and more empowered to contribute your unique gifts to the world. This is not an exhaustive list. It’s meant to get you started.

Remember what you are entitled to

You are entitled to make mistakes. You are entitled to be wrong. You are entitled to change your mind, change your approach, change your priorities. You don’t have to be perfect all the time and have everything figured out to be lovable and respectable. Forgive yourself for your past mistakes. Be amazed at all there is left to learn no matter how much you already know. You are ever evolving. That is the nature of being alive.

You are entitled to not know, not have a good idea, not come up with a brilliant solution, not have an answer. You don’t have to be excellent all the time to earn a right to be seen, to be heard, and to be treated well.

You are entitled to have an opinion, your very own view, the one that others may not see or understand or agree with. You are entitled to voice that view and be heard with respect. You don’t have to stay silent to keep the peace. You don’t have to go along with what everyone else is saying and doing. You don’t have to give up who you are to be loved and valued.

You are entitled to express your needs and make requests. You don’t have to bend over backwards or diminish your light to accommodate other people’s needs for fear that they might feel offended, inconvenienced, or uncomfortable by your needs.

You are entitled to feel your feelings and express them. You don’t have to suppress or hide them. It’s human to have feelings. The nature of feelings is to be expressed, not to be bottled up.

You are entitled to eat your cultural food, wear your cultural clothes, speak your birth language, and listen to your cultural music anywhere you like, including in white spaces, without fear that others may find the smell too pungent, or look at you judgmentally/suspiciously, or ask what you’re doing.

You are entitled to be bad at something when you first start doing it, to practice and get better at it over time, and still be viewed highly. It’s the learning process, for every skill, for everyone. That was how you learned to walk, to talk, to read and write, to play, to drive, to do anything you now know. Don’t let others use the learning process as a weapon against you to make you feel embarrassed of being a learner, to make you afraid of failure, to keep you from even trying. You don’t have to compromise your sense of self-worth in order to continuously learn and improve.

You are entitled to that money, to be rich, to get that raise, to get that job, to win that promotion, to pursue that opportunity. Don’t feel guilty about wanting or getting more money, more power, more leverage, more attention. Don’t question if you deserve it. You are entitled to your ambition. If you’re interested in something, you are entitled to go get it.

You are entitled to learn as you go, to not know what you’re doing. You are not an imposter for it. All successful people learn by doing, making mistakes, practicing and improving.

You are entitled to rest. You are entitled to say no, to decline an invitation without explanation or apology. Your time is yours and only yours. So are your attention, your energy, your life. You don’t owe it to anyone to give up these inherent assets. You are entitled to decide how you want to use them, if you use them at all.

You are entitled to be yourself. You don’t have to apologize for doing any of the above. There’s only one you. Of the billions of humans who have walked and are walking on this earth, there has never been you before and there will never be you again. Respect and love yourself first and foremost.

You are entitled to be loved, respected, seen, heard – especially by yourself.

Always recognize these entitlements in yourself and in others.