Entitled and Fixed Mindset

I once wrote about entitlement few years ago.

After many observations and countless volunteering sessions for the pasr few years, I found one similarity between those who always feel they are entitled to something : they have fixed mindset too.

When I realized this, it explains several things that I don’t think make sense and only consider them as, to say it in my own native language, “ngga tau diri”.

Yesterday, I watched a video about Genius Thinking that explains with one model call The integral AQAL model from Ken Wilbur which explains the reason why some people can get the life they want while some others don’t .

Based on the AQAL model, getting the life that you want is a very complex and complicated process. It requires high level thinking from personal level to society level and it starts from the ability to know how to think.

Writing this rings a bell about many things I read and heard in the past. In the entitlement post, I wrote about my daughter of how I considered her to be entitled due to many privileges she had.

I also remembered her language therapist few years ago once said that she had fixed mindset and one of his therapy goals was to train and improve that. At first, I was quite taken back hearing this from someone else, knowing all the daily routines that we’ve been doing for years, one of the goals is to promote growth mindset. Learning things, making her doing her own chores, doing hard things, etc. But, at certain point, it wasn’t enough (yet).

Now, it feels make sense because being entitled is indeed one of the characteristics of a fixed mindset person.

I see some improvements as years go by, Alhamdulilah. But still, I don’t want to take it for granted. I always think we have still a long way to go (this line alone, without I realize, is the way one with growth mindset thinks).

It also rings another bell about this country. There was once a research regarding the PISA result that said more than half of Indonesian kids had fixed mindset and it showed in their learning result.

Our education relies heavily on result, like exam result, and that is the most fixed mindset thing ever. While the base for growth mindset is process and it is what it takes to instill deep learning so they can employ deep thinking. All questions in PISA test requires that level of thinking.

No wonder we are in 78 out of 81.

It rings another bell too observing people in my surroundings. Those I often consider solely as “ngga tau diri”, turns out it’s not just about that, it is the fixed mindset that translates to many things in real life. Their thinking is limited thus their problem solving. They can only perform linear thinking to every problem. If it’s A, then B. Like there’s only one solution to every problem. They take shortcuts in many things in real life to solve their problem due to lack of understanding and thinking. (I remember writing line in previous post about raising onlies).

Naval said in his famous quote : The only true test of intelligence is not IQ, but if you get what you want out of life. There’s two parts of it. First, getting what you want which means you know how to get it. The second one is: wanting the right things, knowing what to want in the first place.

I now know how hard it is.

It explains why those people I consider entitled, their life stays the same and shows no signficant improvements throughout the years. The scary part, if I look back, who they are when they are little and young , they carry it until they get older. Close to no change at all, they are getting older with a bigger problem to deal with.

I currently deal with something that shows the cost of not teaching thinking properly when one is young is too big to pay when they’re old. Literally and figuratively.

This writing alone makes me really reflect on how I raise my daughter.

Am I on the right track?

Do I bark on the wrong tree?

May Allah make it easy and guide us through all the way.

Amin.

(This is also another 4am post that is finished two hours later and triggered by recent certain circumstances that made me realize I have a lot of biases inside of me. But, I still couldn’t help saying, in my native language, “masa gitu aja ga ngerti sih?” while dealing with this kind of people).

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After publishing the writing, I searched few readings in my library and journal. Found an interesting Journal about the correlation between Psychology Entitlement (PE) and luxury brands consumption and fixed mindset. Whoa!