During the entire month of April, I’m participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. The alphabet will be my motivation, though the content of the posts will be very similar to what regular readers are used to. Check out the link for more amazing bloggers, and enjoy April!

I don’t have a picture for today’s post. And no snappy quote. Five days in and I’ve already gone picture-less on two of them. But I had a difficult time with ‘E’ today. Which is funny because I had dozens of ideas for other letters, half of them have already passed.

This is a rant. There’s some writing/publishing related sentiment in here, but it’s further reaching than that. There’s a mindset that I see more and more as I get older. I don’t know if it’s because it’s always been there and I’m just more aware now, or if it’s because our culture really is changing.

I see a lot of people, young and old, who just expect they should be given things. They have a sense of entitlement that tells them if they want something, it’s their right to have it. I play an online game and have for many years. I’m one of the older players, because this is a ‘free’ game (meaning, it costs infinately more than a subscription game. I’ll explain how that works another day). So it draws in a younger crowd who doesn’t want to pay a regular recurring fee.

The cute characters and endless wardrobes don’t hurt either.

Anyway, if you’ve ever played an MMORPG, you’re familiar with events. For a set period of time in game, you follow a series of instructions and/or quests, and the reward is something rare and unique that (in theory) can’t be acquired any other way in game. Armor, weapons, whatever.

In the game I play, the rewards are almost always random. You do the quests, you get a box, it has a random award in it that may be rare and awesome, or may be health potions. One of the points in this game is to do the quest over and over again in the hopes that you get that epic rare item (that you can then sell for millions of in-game gold because you don’t really want the item, you just want to say you found it. Again, a different post).

And I hear this a lot. A LOT. In game. “I opened five boxes, and I didn’t get anything good. This event sucks.” or “I should get something good just for being here.” or “I know I’ve only played for two months, but it’s not fair that I can’t get one of those rare items they gave away two years ago.”

I’m a part of a vast online writing and blogging community and have been for several years. I’m one of the younger writers in terms of number of words written, number of queries sent, etc. But more people join this group every day, which I guess puts me somewhere in the middle, experience-wise.

Anyway, if you’ve ever read any of these blogs, you’re familiar with the posts about the trials of trying to get published. Someone writes a manuscript, they edit it, they polish it, and then they go about getting it put in print.

Several of the blogs I read are by published authors, either traditionally or self-published. You know, either someone else decides to publish your book, or you do it yourself.

And I hear this a lot. A LOT. From various places. “I queried 5,983,402 agents, and no one wanted to rep me. Big publishing is a scam.” or “I self published a book and put a link on my blog and only one person bought it. Self-publishing is a scam.” Or “I know I just wrote my first 50,000 words ever in a single story last November, but why am I not making millions in advances, overseas rights, and movie deals yet?”

First of all, to both the gamers and the authors: life isn’t fair. I wish it was, but fair for me is unfair for someone else somewhere who worked at least as hard and deserves it at least as much. Every single one of us has a separate path to walk, and if we expect ours will be like someone else’s just because we like the way their journey looked, we’ll always be disappointed.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. There’s always a twinge of disappointment when I open that in-game event box and it has mana potions instead of the most epic sword in the existence of this week inside. There’s always a hint of envy (even though it doesn’t last long and I don’t have the desire to indulge it), when I hear about someone new landing the book interest I was trying for.

But all of that expectation and entitlement is replaced by a desire to see someone else enjoy what they worked so hard for. It doesn’t make me feel like I deserve short cuts, or I should be bumped to the front of the line because I put in more hours.

And fortunately, with my closest writing buddies and all of you that I interract with personally (instead of stumbling on a blog post or Facebook status), I don’t see that. And that makes me happy.

What kind of expectations do you find yourself pushing aside because you know they’re counter-productive?