PART 1 Q&A
Q1: What does “entitlement” mean? Can you give an example to explain it?
A: Entitlement is a failed strategy. It’s just another high. It’s not happiness.Your entitlement program at work might offer various benefits, or you might receive a medical entitlement once you reach a certain age. These are just basic things you get. More recently, entitlement has taken on a critical sense. If someone has a sense of entitlement, that means the person believes he deserves certain privileges — and he's arrogant about it. The term "culture of entitlement" suggests that many people now have highly unreasonable expectations about what they are entitled to.
Q2: What’s the point of telling Jimmy’s story?
Jimmy's story is tell us these kind of person like Jimmy hides from his problems by making up imagined successes for himself at every turn. And because he can’t face his problems, no matter how good he feels about himself, he is weak.
Q3: Do you think you are special? What’s wrong with feeling you are sepcial?
well, I think "special" is contrastive things in our life. In the junior high school, in the whole of class, I'm was only person who I'm good at drawing and painting, well, have a little bit special. On the contrary. When I was studying in Fine Art School, I am not special anymore. As a result, it is something difficult to say you are special.
Q4: If you are not special, how can we achieve greatness?
It’s anti-entitlement. People who become great at something become great because they understand that they’re not already great—they are mediocre, they are average—and that they could be so much better.
PART 2 My Ideas
Often, it’s this realization—that you and your problems are actually not privileged in their severity or pain—that is the first and most important step toward solving them.
Sometimes we think about ourselves we're not good enough, great enough, strong enough when we were struggling with some trouble. Complaining something cannot give you privileges. we are the most common people, searching methods is only way to improve our ability.
You will have a growing appreciation for life’s basic experiences: the pleasures of simple friendship, creating something, helping a person in need, reading a good book, laughing with someone you care about.
这些事看似无聊但又是很自然平常的事，每个人都经历过的。总是想着自己如何成功，有多么高的成就给自己期望值太高，自我为中心，那么小小的挫折则会击垮你让你失去信心。做一个平常人怀着上进心，生活会不断给你惊喜。
PART 3 Expression
which, for an adolescent in 1998, was tantamount to being sentenced to death by lameness.
tantamount adj: if an action, suggestion, plan etc is tantamount to something bad, it has the same effect or is almost as bad
与equal是同义词，但是tantamount 侧重于something bad
e.g To leave a dog home alone is tantamount to cruelty.
The problem is that the pervasiveness of technology and mass marketing is screwing up a lot of people’s expectations for themselves.
screw up: 1. to make a bad mistake or do something very stupid . 在众多英美剧用到
相似的词：mess up
2. screw up your eyes/face: to move the muscles in your face in a way that makes your eyes seem narrow:
3. screw somebody up: informal to make someone feel very unhappy, confused, or upset so that they have emotional problems for a long time
e.g. I guess there was some screw-up at the damn post office. ----老友记
Many celebrities are probably just as clueless about life as the people who gawk at them and follow their every move.
gawk: to look at something for a long time, in a way that looks stupid
When you stare in amazement at something, you gawk at it. You might stand frozen in one position with your mouth and eyes wide open and gawk when you see a famous movie star on the street.
相似的词：stare at
Something about recent technology seems to allow our insecurities to run amok like never before.
run amok: To behave or run around in a wild, unruly, out-of-control manner; to be crazy or chaotic. 胡作非为,乱砍乱杀
Business and motivational seminars cropped up chanting the same paradoxical mantra: every single one of us can be exceptional and massively successful.
crop up: if a problem crops up, it happens or appears suddenly and in an unexpected way
e.g. It might be political suicide not to shut your border and then to have a case crop up in your country. ----BBC
On any given day, if you asked him what he was doing, he’d rattle off the name of some firm he was consulting with....
rattle off: say something very quickly and easily from memory
e.g. The finals MVP is LeBron James who grew up in nearby Akron and can, himself, rattle off Cleveland's famous losses. ----NPR
不假思索地说，语速飞快地说