A phrase?

[PhilipTarbuck]

Among the various 'nice' sayings on my wall is one as follows:
"The secret of contentment is the realization that life is a gift, not a right."
That is really troubling me. I can't quite see the difference. If someone could explain it to me I would be grateful.

[FaeLuna]

Some people have a very different attitude about "rights" -they feel justifued in DEMANDING stuff they think are related to their Rights... "The World Owes Me A Living" was the song sung by the Grasshopper in the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant.

A Gift, on the other hand, is NOT deserved or earned, no one owed it to you, and for a lot of people that brings a sense of gratitude.

I think your saying is saying to not look at life as OWEING you anything... I have friends complaining about how their parents never gave them a car for their 16th birthday, they don't have cable in their bedroom tv, their computer in their room is too slow and their parents won't get them a new one... instead of realizing they have all these wonderful EXTRAS provided by their parents already, they see others getting things and they feel that they should have the RIGHT to have stuff, just like their peers. When people get older it goes to things like wanting a good job dumped in your lap, life owes you the mate of your dreams with no effort on your part... YOU deserve to win the lottery because your childhood was lousy... stuff like that.

It can really mess up how people think and act when they take that attitude!

[PhilipTarbuck]

I never thought for a moment that anyone would give me anything at all. I admit that I have cried once on my life (apart from when an animal died - I usually cry when that happens - the price of love is grief). It was just a little while after we had been married. We got married in the March and it was my birthday in the August. My wife bought me a present for my birthday. It was just that. I cried. I never thought that anyone would ever care for me enough to do that.
A gift is something you get without it being obligated to you in any way - no 'consideration' for it in legal terms. A right is something you are entitled to - I can understand that. In English law no-one can recant (take back) a gift. So you get it for nothing - just like a right. You get that for nothing as well - or do you? I suppose the 'right' refers to the rest of your life. If you have a right, then someone has to owe you something - i.e. some has a 'wrong' (in a way). But when you get a gift they owe you nothing at all? So you have no reason to expect anything? So if you should happen to be born in a poor country and die very early in life? If no-one owed you anything that would be the result?
Your mother must owe you a life and so life is a right? She owes you from the moment you are born until the moment you set her free of you?
As I have remarked elsewhere, it is a very unfair, uneven thing.
The more I argue the point the more I come to the realisation that life is a right - not a gift. There is no 'consideration' (no 'price') but you get the right when you are born.
It is still, to my mind, a difficult sentence and one that, so far, still puzzles me enormously.

[hataz_gon_hate]

i get it now...

[PhilipTarbuck]

When a gift is received it should be thought as a kind act done by one person entirely for the benefit of someone else, and for no other reason. Not because you expect a gift in return.
A right, however, is often taken without thought. I have a right to vote but I am not very concerned with who obtained that for me or what it is worth or anything.
I wish I could always accept a gift in the way I accepted the first birthday gift ever from my wife to me. I don't nowadays and I suspect that a lot of people don't either. It is for that reason that I couldn't understand the phrase.
I understand it now, but whether it is right or not is another matter.

[hataz_gon_hate]

but if gifts cant be taken away, how come lives could be taken away? so i guess i means life is a right, since rights can be taken away

[PhilipTarbuck]

In some countries a pure gift can be recanted - i.e. taken back again. I don't know what the circumstances are, but in England once a thing has been given it cannot be taken back again.
Generally speaking a right cannot be taken away again, either, but there is a terrific difference. No-one told the person who gave the gift to think about the person who was to receive it, but someone did. A gift comes freely.