What do you deserve (in this economy)?

As someone who works around wellness and care and social justice, I hear a lot of rhetoric about what we “deserve”.

• You deserve to live life on your terms.

• I deserve respect and care.

• We deserve healthcare and housing and basic human rights!

I even use it in one of my subject lines for those who opt-in to receive for my new free resource, 7 Tools to Cultivate Revolutionary Relationships in a Dystopian World (get it, it’s awesome!) 

I had never questioned the use of this word until one of my teachers, James-Olivia Chu Hillman, told me “deserve implies merit”.

🤯🤯🤯

Do you have to earn the right to live life on your terms? Do I need to earn respect and care? Do we have to work/earn/achieve to have our basic needs yet?