Is Life Really Unfair?

06 Jun Is Life Really Unfair?

Tom was getting on Njoku’s nerves with his repeated rationalization of as unfair, even when he was the cause of his own pain.

The last time he said, “life is unfair,” Njoku jumped up in anger, “Sulking Tom, it is true life is unfair,” he stamped his feet. “It was not fair yesterday, it is not fair today, and it will not be fair tomorrow.”

But how can life be fair if according to some faiths, the earth has been taken over by Satan? And are all the pains we suffer in life not the fines we have to pay to stay alive?

The pains of life, often described as unfairness of life has daily visibility all around us – on the streets, in homes, and even in the comfort of bedrooms.

Life is unfair, when kids of poor parents have to compete with rich kids at school and for jobs; when the rich and the poor shop in the same market; when Maroko residents were evicted for the rich now in Victoria Island Extension; when teams like Manchester City and Leeds play in the same league, after the big, rich teams have creamed off all the good players.

There are worse cases. Since its founding in 2001, Boko Haram terrorists have been responsible for thousands of  deaths comprising mostly innocent people. Innocent people! To many people, this is mere a statistic, but many families have been ruined by the killing of their bread winners, or psychologically scared forever. Or you want to think about the blows life dealt people and their families on the crashed flights? You will hate an unfair life. In that sense, life is truly unfair.

But life is also unfair when people forget or ignore their direct or indirect contribution to “misfortunes” they suffer. They lament, grumble about their problems as if they had nothing to do with them. They cry life has been unfair to them – unfair bosses, disloyal friends, and unfaithful partners- but fail to see their role in any aspect of the problem. Nowhere in their lamentation do they see themselves.

The fact of life is that such people are unfair to themselves; even when they accept their mistakes, they find easy excuses in the devil.

But there is this more upbeat perspective. It is that the misfortunes, experiences that are totally unjust, are taxes we pay for being alive.

Some experts say they are fines you can pretty much count on having to pay; if only by virtue of occupying space on planet Earth. From time to time, and without advanced warning, life will deal you a slight, an insult, an undeserved blow of some sort that you can hardly help but experience as totally unjust. It’s like suddenly being relegated to a penalty box, without having committed the slightest foul.

This perspective is a positive attitude that keeps you walking, keeps going until you reach your destined goal.  It is like if you want to live on this planet, expect some unfairness; or you hate to fall, you don’t play rugby; you get nervy about traffic snarls you have to quit Lagos; you love God, you have to be obedient to him; and you hate water, you don’t swim.

You don’t go about in life like a crying wimp – weak, timid, unassertive, or ineffectual- because life is unfair. Following from that I like this position of psychotherapists: Life was not fair yesterday, it is not fair today, and it will not be fair tomorrow, so it is absolutely crucial to accept the bad things that gratuitously happen to us, take them in our stride, take them on the chin to enable us achieve a healthy and productive state of well-being.

Dr. Leon F. Seltzer, a clinical psychologist, knows how to deal with these periodic fines with a three “A” approach:

Assess. Ask yourself just how serious this particular “fine” is. Might you be exaggerating its importance? How much of your life (if any) do you actually want or need to devote to it?

Accept. Just acknowledge that you’ve been fined for, well, nothing. Make up your mind not to let it bother you any more than absolutely necessary.

Act. Now that you’ve decided not to waste your mental and emotional energy by obsessing upon or brooding over your bad luck–or by ruminating about how you might retaliate–what’s the best action to take? How can you best cope with this setback? Might you work around it?

The preacher man has another option. Take it to God. I think I like that. Life may be unfair, but God, the God of Justice, is fair.