How to respond to the unfairness of life
Last week I shared how unfair my life is (here) and promised I’d share the secret of what to do next or how to respond in a way the promotes greater fairness. The answer is simple—be grateful.
We typically only think of a situation as being unfair when we’ve got the short end of the stick but as I shared last week, I’ve got the long end of the stick, which I hope you can see is just as unjust as getting the short end. I find humanity’s one-sided fixation on unfairness fascinating. I don’t whether you’re guilty of this negativity bias, but I am—I have many firsthand experiences of being acutely aware of the unfairness of being overcharged yet I have as many or more experiences of being completely ignorant of the unfair privilege I have as white male. A common popular culture reference to the state of being unfairly and positively treated is “born with a silver spoon in their mouth”, however it is laden with negative connotations and resentment which I’m not convinced is helpful in serving the needs of humanity.
Life is unfair. So many things happen that we have no control over—the family you’re born into, the community in which you grew up, gender, race, sexual orientation, the genes that influence your health, your cognitive ability, hard luck and much, much more. I don’t know if we can do anything to eliminate all of these but as a society, it is incumbent upon us to prevent an evolutionary culture of survival of the fittest and instead create a world of solidarity, peace and love.
I believe we must:
disarm the judgement attached to being on the upside of the unfairness of life
encourage individual reflection on what each of us has received from life without comparing ourselves to others
When we do this, more of us will consciously acknowledge the reality of our privilege and as I’ve witnessed in thousands of people across the socioeconomic spectrum, this invites and produces gratitude. Gratitude recognizes the unearned fairness in one’s life and transforms the human spirit. Then the magic happens because when we are grateful we are more likely to proactively act in ways that generate more fairness in the world, at work, at home and in the community, by giving, serving, standing with and advocating for others.
