If I'm Not Paying for it, Its Free

I'm having a lot of guilty conflict over this viewpoint that I seem to have some attachment to: If I'm Not Paying For it, Its Free. 

Its a little bizarre how sensitive I am about paying for things, and then how completely blaise I am about the sheer costs of things that I don't pay for.  For example, my parents paid for my college tuition.  I never once thought to myself, this individual class at UCD cost $1000, Marissa, you should really appreciate this and study hard.  I didn't have any sense of gratitude over it and I reacted to the known costs of the program with this sort of override entitlement on 'well its just free'.  I even just just recently went out with a guy and let him pay for dinner and the comedy show we went to, and sort of felt bad on an ambiguous level and didn't really consider the costs.  I was just thinking of myself, that I'm unemployed.  But how do I have any idea of what his costs are, for rent or school loans, and why would I think its fine that he should pay while I still have money in the bank?

Same with insurance, which completely covers my blood draws, but covers minimally if I see someone out of network.  I've never thought of the cost of the blood draws knowing that its free.  If it wasn't covered, I would feel so stingy, trying to ask the doctor to order fewer tests, and feeling bad about tests ordered that came out negative that would need to be paid for, it would feel useless.  But for me currently, my healthcare is free, since my parents pay the premiums and I just pay copays, and I barely think about it.  I feel like I should be both guilty and grateful for things that are free.  Guilty because, I am getting something and didn't pay for it, and grateful, that I am getting something and didn't pay for it.  But if either, I only feel guilty.

Its just infinite: my parents covered my car payments, so they are free. My parents will cover my mental health costs, so they are free.  My parents buy groceries, so they are free.  My parents pay for my car insurance so my car is free, and they pay for my cell phone too.  It would be really problematic and conflicting for me to get a cell phone on my own plan, considering how little I use it, but, I never think about that.  You have no idea how much food I eat at home, just because 'its free'.  I simply have no sense of the fact of financial burden.  And if it feels free, I feel like I can take whatever I want, so long as I'm not paying.  I even let my second doctor reorder tests that my first doctor had sent for. 

 I think it would be okay if I developed gratitude and trust in the system, that sometimes things are free because no one can do everything by themselves.  So, first there is trust that this is okay, and then gratitude that I have been helped. 

When I did the get results back from my blood tests that were positive that I have a number of severe and chronic food allergies, I took the news well, and that was great.  I used a number of positive thoughts to be contrary to getting down, such as 'well I don't really taste my food anyways, so it truly doesn't matter; if I didn't enjoy my last sandwich on bread that much then I can't make a big deal of not being able to eat it', and over feeling regret at not having found out sooner by a past doctor, 'I already would have been in a lot of pain and it would have felt too late, whenever it was found out in the past'. 

So, I felt like I dealt with it quite well and if you saw my facebook posts you know that I took the brunt of the news with a zany excitement, focusing on future body health improvement.   What was interesting was that my Buddhist teacher, Mira, said 'so great that you have been offered this practical solution'; the key word being offered.  I was a little struck.  Aren't I entitled to get proper results?  I thought I was entitled to the doctors ordering the right tests, as they should know what to do.  The thousands of dollars of blood tests that were ordered, the majority negative, didn't I deserve all that so that I could get a correct diagnosis to help myself - isn't that what medicine is all about?   But in fact, I hadn't even considered the financial cost of the blood tests which just seemed free to me, since I was paying.  Someone somewhere is paying for it! Insurance, my parents, I don't know who, the lab technicians, I don't even know how many people are involved.  And I just totally ignored it in my entitled thinking.

I'm not sure whether or not the entitlement is okay or not.  But when Mira said 'what you were offered' made me feel more grateful about it, about people having taken the time to draw labs and scan them through a computer, and the doctor and office staff for getting them back to me.  It made me feel as though I were receiving good karma from past actions; that my past efforts had made me worthy, as if I wasn't worthy of this news earlier.  I'm not sure I agree with this, and am having conflict between the scientific side of 'a test is a test'.  But wow, did the word 'offered' make for a different conception of my doctors experience.  I felt less entitled to the truth, and more spun into a million factors of existence.

Its Mira who asked me simply to trust in the world.  So I want to trust that I got all these blood tests for free, and not feel guilty about it, and not feel entitled to it, or not feel pressure that I necessarily need to help others because I was helped.  I wish to feel as though my value as a human being enabled me to have access to much needed results.  But that's not how it works - and I am hung up on why I was helped and why it was free to me.  I didn't get those results before and by no means has everything been given me that I need just because I am a worthy human, that simply doesn't exist.  You perhaps are given your basics of food, water, shelter as a result of being human, but some people don't even get that.  Maybe you aren't even necessarily granted respect. 

I want to feel grateful for all these things that I have been given - free car, free housing, free education, free/very cheap access to medical care.  I can't though, its hard, I end up thinking of all the things I lack and feeling pitiful.  I feel distrustful over these free things, that something is wrong or bad that I'm getting them for free.  But if its as Mira said, I was offered them, maybe I can disregard some of the conflict over it being free, and be thankful.  If anyone gave me a gift, I would say thank you, I wouldn't normally question it this much and get all knotted up in guilt.  I wouldn't get caught under mountains of shame at how much I was given and how little I used or shared with others.  I would be excited to open it, I would be delighted at being an object of appreciation, I would cherish it, and I would be generous with it.  I wish to be generous with my gifts I have been offered.