Life Isn’t Fair
Kind of a depressing title, but it’s the truth – the sooner we get over the idea that life is supposed to be fair, the better off we are. The first problem with expecting life to be fair is this: it’s sort of subjective to decide if something is fair or not. We might think it’s not fair that the guy who’s still drinking got the job we wanted, but he certainly thinks it’s perfectly fair.
Expectations of fairness can get us into a lot of trouble, mainly because we are sure to be disappointed, and we have a tendency when disappointed to develop resentments. I know I can hold a grudge for a reaaaalllly looonggg time. Resentment builds to a point where we then start to think it’s just not worth it – all that work and what do we have to show for it? That bum did nothing right and he got what I wanted. I work hard and do everything right…you know the rap.
I was thinking recently while obsessively watching the news coverage from Haiti about how it bothers me when someone is saved and says they had faith and that’s why they were saved. This statement presupposes that all the people dead under the rubble didn’t have enough faith. It’s based on the big old myth that life is somehow fair and if you do the right things (in some people’s minds that means belonging to the right religion or saying the right prayers), only good things will happen to you. If bad things happen to you, you must have done something wrong. I certainly can understand the initial reaction after a horrific event, but then there are the people who use it to make pronouncements about what others “deserved.” There are plenty of public figures who try to promote this idea. One, who will remain unnamed so as not to be too controversial here, pretty much said Haiti got what it deserved for something it did 200 years ago – a sort of Old Testament sins-of-the-father wrath.
In my mind, this idea that people deserved something horrible is utter hogwash. A baby doesn’t make moral choices, and babies died in the earthquake. Sort of throws the old if-you-just-prayed-harder-or-to-the-right-god theory right out the window.
In the end, all these beliefs come down to a human longing for things to make sense, be fair, and be right. Unfortunately, the world simply doesn’t work that way. We all know it to be true in our hearts, and we only complicate our lives when we struggle to make sense of the senseless and ascribe some hidden meaning to the random events that sometimes hurt us. Being psychologically healthy means being realistic and accepting the limitations of being human. Sometimes that means we have to shrug our shoulders and admit, life sometimes just isn’t fair. Sometimes it isn’t fair to me. Sometimes it isn’t fair to you.
