Be Fair

The Problem With Fairness

When one of my three children comes to me and says, “My brother got an ice cream I want one too,” like any mother I would like to be fair and give them an ice cream. But what if there is no more ice cream? What if all of the ice cream stores went out of business last night? What if the child did not eat their supper? What if the child asking for the ice cream just punched his brother and provoked a fight?

There are any number of reasons why it may not be the right thing, or the convenient thing or the best thing to give this child ice cream right now. If I have raised my child with the expectation that fairness will prevail I have now set myself up for failure as a parent and I have set up my child for failure in life.

Life Is Not Fair

I believe it is an important life lesson to teach my children that life is not fair. No savior is coming on a white horse to save them from the realities that they face. People get sick and there is nothing fair about it. People die. Pets die. Sometimes another child gets the ice cream, and you don’t get any. You may lose a contest to someone who did not deserve to win.  Life is not fair. Get over it.

You will recover faster and live better if you expect things to be mostly unfair. If you choose to live life with a positive attitude but do not expect others to reciprocate you will be better off. This is an attitude that allows you to continue to have peace in a world full of unrest and injustices. We can’t control the world or the people in it. We can’t make people be fair. We can only control our own attitude.

We live in a democracy and most of our laws and legal systems are designed for fairness, but sometimes they don’t work. Sometimes they are not fair. Sometimes the bad guys win. There are other countries where the laws are not based on fairness at all. They may be based on bribery or the ability to fight back or simply stay out of the way. There is nothing that guarantees fairness and the sooner we learn that the better off we are.

Keeping Score

Why do we try to keep score? Isn’t it because we want to manage some sort of control? If I do one right thing to you then that is one point. If this is a game or a war we can keep score to see who wins. Or perhaps we want to keep score to be sure there is equality. Control gives us an unbalanced view of equality. I do something for you, now I feel there is a debt to be paid. You owe me the same amount of credit. How do relationships grow when partners keep score? I made the bed but you didn’t take out the garbage so you don’t love me as much as I love you. Relationships don’t work when someone is keeping score. When I give 50% and you give 50% we are both only half into it. A good relationship happens when both partners give 110% always, but real life happens. People can’t always do that. Sickness, work, life and stress happens. If we are not keeping score love will still grow during times of deficit but if we always need it to be balanced and fair we are going to be really disappointed with life.

The idea of ultimate fairness breeds a sense of entitlement. I was a good person and now I am owed something because I was good. Shouldn’t we be good anyway? Isn’t goodness something that comes from within? Do we need to be rewarded for every good deed?

The world is full of people. Some do bad things without any provocation. Others are good people who do bad deeds due to a moment of weakness. Then there are the Mother Theresa’s of the world who do good without reward or recognition. We tend to remember the very bad and the very good. The very bad are too notorious to miss but why do we remember the very good? Isn’t it because they did not keep score? They gave of their life without a need for reciprocation and eventually someone noticed. There were many more who were never noticed. They did not do all of those good things to count on a big scoreboard. They did it because they were good and fair and they brought justice to the world around them. They added justice as a value to the people in their circle of influence and they did not rank or tally a score.

Living Without Expectations

Although I would love to see everything be fair in the world and I would love to make everything fair in my home and in my life, I am too realistic to believe that is going to happen. So I live life without that expectations of fairness. I have given up my sense of entitlement for fairness and it is incredibly freeing. Understanding that there is no balance makes life very balanced indeed. One does not need to live on an emotional rollercoaster. This philosophy removes anger from life. If we expect that hurting people hurt others and that they will react unfairly we no longer need to feel that we were singled out. We now realize that scorpions bite people because they are scorpions. We did nothing to deserve it. Life is unfair and there are scorpions who bite people.

Being Fair In An Unjust World

We can demand justice but that rarely works. Unjust people exist at every level of power in our lives. Kicking against the shins of authority never brings positive change. The better plan is to be a just person and work to become the person in authority. That is where one can implement change. Unfortunately a plan of delayed gratification takes more time than our sense of entitlement will often endure. Timing is everything. Timing wins the day, but it may not be the day you had imagined. It took many years for the Berlin Wall to come down and it may take many years for your unfair wall to crumble as well.

Think of how many oppressed peoples had to work for decades or centuries for change. Apartheid was wrong for as long as it existed. It didn’t change because someone decided one day that it was unjust. It was known to be unjust but changing it took the efforts of many and it happened when the timing was right. Nelson Mandela was in jail for 27 years unfairly, and his release did not mean that it was all over and justice would come swiftly. Today there are still major problems in South Africa long after Apartheid came to an end. There are injustices there now against the white minority and there are dozens of other races in conflict continuously. Changing the laws and making them more fair for some also made them less fair for others. The unfair ripple effects from the old way of doing things works against the plans to make things more fair today.

What Is Fair?

There is no such thing as equal balance. It may happen for a season as a government realigns or a new ideal comes to power but it does not take long for something to end unfairly in our human existence.

The fact is you can demand justice or you can live in a just way. You be fair. That is all we can do as individuals as situations warrant it. We can only change ourselves.

Pick your battles. Some you can bring change to right away and if that is possible it is a worthy endeavor. There are those battles however, that suck up your life and bring no change. Choose wisely where you will expend your energy. Sometimes you need to bring together a team of people to implement the change you desire. Sometimes you need to plan things out and take your time. Sometimes you need to let that dog lay quiet for a while and come back to it later when you have a bigger stick, and you have a chance to make a change.

How can you make the world a more just place to live in today? That is fair. Pick a battle you can win and give it a fair try. Be fair to yourself.

Always Loyal2U,

Kerry George