The Burger King Syndrome
Imagine a huge, delicious, juicy burger staring up at your from a tray on the table. You take a sniff, feeling hungrier every minute. There it is—all what you want, how you want it. The bun, toasted lightly. No tomatoes or lettuce or that icky sour stuff. Just the delicious meat and the delicious cheese.
Welcome to Burger King. The place where you can have your burger prepared just the way you want it. Want tomoates? No? Okay, how about lettuce? An extra serving of pickles? Absolutely no mustard or mayonnaise?
That’s Burger King’s greatest feat—you get to have what you want the way you want it.
Often, we take the “Have It Your Way” attitude—or what I call “the Burger King Syndrome”—all the way through life.
As long as we want something, we think we can get it. We push the limits, we step past the boundaries. We think that the world out there is to please us.
Parents are supposed to give us what we want. That means no chores, a huge amount of allowance, and our favorite dishes every meal.
Teachers are supposed to make lessons fun, give us less homework (after all, teenagers have sooo much to do, right?), and give exceptionally high grades so our parents don’t ground us from the TV and internet for 3 years.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but you’ve got to admit that, one way or another, we’re caught up in the BK Syndrome. Whether we admit it or not, we like having things our way.
Take another example from movies or TV. We barely have patience with films where characters are not involved in anything exciting. For a movie to succeed, it must have intense action that make our hearts race 5 miles a minute.
Cellphones must have the latest features. Our pockets must carry the latest gadgets.
In school, when the professor announces a quiz, we usually groan “Sir! (or Ma’am!) sa susunod na lang! Di pa kami nagrereview!”
Ouch! Although we are not aware of it always, we are guilty of the BK Syndrome. We think things should go our way. We think our “needs” are more important than other people’s needs.
The world knows what we want, and as a response, it tries to make sure we get it. We’ve got stores like Burger King with the slogan “Have It Your Way.” (Sounds good, doesn’t it?) We’ve got Y.R.Y.S. which means “Your Rules, Your Style.” (Sounds even better!)
Always getting our way, however, leads to discontentment. How about trying to be happy with everything you have? (1 Thessalonians 5:18) The Bible also encourages us to not go with the flow and to be different from what the world expects of us (Romans 12:1). That means sacrificing a little, even if it means you don’t always get what you want.
It’s not easy to think about others first, it’s not easy to stop wishing that things are just the way we want them to be. It’s hard to get rid of the BK syndrome, but working on it little a time will help each one of us.
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What about you?
• What are some other things you’ve seen that the world use in order to trick us into thinking that we can get what we want, however we want it?
• Are there things in your life right now that are affected by the BK Syndrome?
• If so, what can you do to get rid of it?
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14 Comments
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M.L.K.M.M. says:
this website is so cool!
i've been spending almost an hour browsing through the past and recent blogs posted..
and i've already learned a lot of stuff!
i thought i was the only person experiencing such problems and realizations in life..
di pala..marami pala tayo!
haha..nagpapasalamat talaga ako at nag-CR ako sa school ng ate ko (and future school ko)..
kung hindi siguro,di ko makikita ang sticker ng TLW sa pinto ng isang cubicle!
haha..astig talaga!ü
now i'm pretty sure God led me to this place..
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