The Importance Of Nothing
You get up everyday. You’re entitled to nothing.
It’s October 11th, 2023. Alabama football has won four straight games after dropping the second game of the season to Texas. However, the season has been anything but clean since then. They scrapped by a middling South Florida team, flirted with losing to unranked Texas A&M, and now face a feisty Arkansas squad. It’s SEC football. Every week is competitive. No easy wins exist. Nick Saban, the legendary Alabama Football Coach, steps to the mic to address the media heading into the game.
He places his pen and paper down, steadying himself by gripping his hands on the sides of the podium. He exudes discontentment. It is another week of addressing the media and fans who expect greatness. Zero losses and a National Championship or bust. He glazes out into the crowd with a blank stare devoid of emotion. He’s done this many times before. Expecting an opening statement on how the team looks heading into a must win game, he instead addresses the audience,
“Okay, y’all ready for a lecture?”
The pause is filled with silence. A sign of respect. When he talks, you listen. Not expecting a response, he maintains his blank stare as he drums his fingers on the stand, emitting a nervous energy. Perhaps he is taking an unconventional route, providing thoughts he has yet to verbalize to others. His eyes glance down again at his notes, almost to double check the message he wants to send. As he moves his eyes back up, he begins,
“Talk about the importance of nothing…”
He has a devilish smirk, raising an eyebrow, relishing in the wisdom he is about to impart. He pauses, shrugging his shoulders, and pulls his fingers away from the stand before continuing,
“You get up everyday. You’re entitled to nothing. Nobody owes you, nothing. You could have talent, but if you don’t have discipline and you don’t execute, you don’t focus. What do you get? Nothing. If you’re complacent and don’t pay attention to detail, what does that get you? Nothing.”
No one is entitled to anything. When I wake up, I am entitled to nothing. I am not granted breakfast in bed. I don’t evoke a special clause to avoid traffic on my way to work. I don’t get handed a promotion because I want it. I am entitled to nothing. It pairs well with the sentiment that younger me loved by JJ Watt,
“Success isn’t owned. It’s leased, and rent is due every day.”
It is all part of the idea that everything is a work in progress, but it takes humility to see that. Everyone you meet is in a spot along their lifelong process of growth towards achieving their desired success. It is a continual effort to maintain that trajectory. Of course, this can be hard to see. Nick Saban would have never had to point this out if it is clear. Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist, provides some helpful context,
“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.”
The issue arises when the idea that the work in progress is complete and morphs into entitlement. It’s time for a promotion at work, I should get it right on time. They are a much better football team. They must win. I have trained for my Hyrox, sacrificing nights out with friends, eliminating sweets from my diet, so I should accomplish my goal. But I am not entitled to anything, I am entitled to nothing.
Humility is freedom from the need to always expect the desired results, but entitlement is a damaging claim that is fueled by egotism. Humility is infused with gratitude, contentment, and respect. This humility leads to wisdom, too. Nick Saban has overcome the egotistical and overconfident tendencies rooted in our culture. He’d been doing it for decades and developed the right awareness to know what is and isn’t a given. Nick Saban has seen plenty to be able to zoom out to see the entire landscape and know the role that entitlement and humility play in the larger story.
Today, it is easy to come to expect things, to garner that sense of entitlement. When I think about some of the things that frustrate me, I often land on things I expected to see but didn’t. In high school, it was a college scholarship for track & field. In college, I anticipated multiple job offers. Post grad life, I envisioned a life of tranquility as my dream job would land in my lap, but I was entitled to none of this.
However, truly humble people who know they are entitled to nothing and everything is always a work in progress that must be tended to everyday, use their entitlement as fuel. They know we are flawed beings, and we fall to the temptations that say we should get this or that. It is being able to resist those temptations and realize that rent is due everyday and entitlement mounts to nothing. JJ Watt and Nick Saban are living examples of it. And if we continue to be complacent and expect things to come to us? Well, we will end up with nothing.
Appreciate you being here.
-Scantron