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By Klaus Döring
Saying “life is not fair” means that reality does not operate on a moral system of equal rewards, balanced consequences or guaranteed justice.
Life isn’t fair just because you expect it to be. Life is random. You think it is supposed to be fair, so you have expectations. The key to happiness is letting go of expectations and dealing with what is in front of you. Life is tough. It is cruel at times, but there is also a great capacity for happiness, even joy.
You are the only person who can see things from your exact point of view. Everyone else around you has a completely different point of view. Therefore, people just might disagree with you because your view of reality may be different from theirs. If they disagree with you, they may work against you.
Plenty of people work hard but never get what they feel they deserve. Plenty of people are incredibly decent but always seem to get the short end of the stick. Plenty of people are smart but never seem to apply their academic excellence to entrepreneurial or professional achievement.
Plenty of people fall in love only to see their love squandered on someone who doesn’t reciprocate.
The conclusion most of us reach … life isn’t fair.
Or is it that many of us just don’t understand the “protocol” and have a bad relationship with “fairness”?
Many times, I have observed that children at a young age like to cry out, “It isn’t fair,” whenever they feel they have been wronged. Just a couple of days ago, I heard one father, whose patience was already wearing thin, responding grimly, “Life is not fair!”
Even we adults often have problems with the idea of fairness. The laborers in the vineyard certainly did. They received exactly what they had bargained for, yet they complained when others got the same pay for less work.
If this parable were a story about earned wages, the grumblers would have been quite right to complain. But this story is about the way God deals with us, and how can we say that God is not fair?
Fairness means clarity and being free from fault or stain. Fairness is the light-colored, hopeful and plausible part of our lives — the span between life and death. Life cannot always be fair — of course not! But we could make it a little fairer, though our world is often ruled by falseness.
Fairness requires people to be put into categories. Anyone who fulfills certain requirements will receive a certain reward, regardless of differences in the situation. But only God knows that categories merely outline the sort of people we are. He knows that each one of us is unique and has individual needs.
In our everyday lives, do we really practice fairness in our workplace and in our dealings with others? How? Let’s analyze ourselves. May we learn what it means to be fair to another person.
I learned a lot from Steve Wohlenhaus, CEO of Weatherology, a leading company in the dissemination of audio weather information. Wohlenhaus said, “We need to spend more time focused on the present and less time ruminating about the past. We need to accept the unpleasant aspects of our past and do our best to move on. Concentrate on the present and create a beautiful and better future. That’s energy well spent.
“When we get trapped believing our past defines our future, life seems unfair. When we spend too much time contemplating the future and believe our destiny is outside our control, we feel helpless and life seems ‘unfair.’ Allocating our emotional energy wisely helps us dedicate our time to what truly matters and gain control over the belief that life is unfair.”
Proverbs, probably the most down-to-earth book in the Bible, prepares us for our daily lives. In its prologue, “Purpose and Theme,” it says in 1:3: “…for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair.” Colossians adds in “Rules for Christian Households,” in 4:1, “Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair …”
Life is unfair and therefore painful enough to cause grief. But the consideration that some good may develop from life’s unfairness still makes living a better option than dying. Life is still good when lived with hope rather than a tendency to give up.
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Suggestions or comments? Email me at doringklaus@gmail.com, follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn or X (formerly Twitter), or visit one of my websites: www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com.
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