JFK is credited with the following definition of happiness:

Happiness consists of the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording scope.

Exercise of vital powers is a description of exerting yourself as though your life depends on it.  Robert S. DeRopp in his book The Master Game advised his readers:

Find a game worth playing in life and play it as though your life depends on it - because it does.

Few people, if any, can simply choose this.  At some level, physical survival has to be at stake before most folks will fully engage.

Entitlements discourage full engagement.

I don't know what will be presented at this meeting, (and as interested as I am, I cannot drive 1,500 miles to attend!), but if you ask me (and as usual, nobody did - but when has that ever stopped me?!), the fact that entitlements do not encourage full engagement and in fact that entitlements discourage full engagement is What's "Really" Wrong with Entitlements.

Failure to engage fully is failure to own yourself.  (Thank you Butler Schaffer for the idea of self-ownership)

DC Treybil

PS:  Before a bunch of Babylon 5 fans form a mob and burn a question mark in my yard, look it up.  It wasn't some ancient Greek philosopher as Edgars said.  I know I know.  It was the best 120 hours of tv I ever saw or ever hoped to see.  That's how I feel about JMS's work on that show.