We've all heard it, whether it was from parents, teachers, coaches, siblings, or really any other person that happens to be older than us. When we complain that something isn't right, or say that something isn't fair, the knee-jerk response is always, "Life's not fair--get used to it!"
On one hand, I understand why we're told that. It's unrealistic to raise kids to think that everything is always going to work out perfectly in their favor. No one is going to win all the time. One person can't always get their way. Life is most certainly going to put us in situations and hand us outcomes that are definitely unfair. We all go through too many things in this life to expect otherwise.
Teaching kids from the get-go, though, that life is just going to repeatedly kick them whether they're down or not doesn't seem to be the best alternative. There has to be a happy medium between leading children to believe that things are always going to go their way and letting them believe that life is a cruel mistress and nothing will ever go their way.
There will always be times of injustice and unfairness in life. But the majority of the time things are actually going to go really well. Sure, people can be cruel, but most of them are good. Life can be unfair, but most of the time it isn't. One of my favorite quotes when things seem to be going wrong is, "It isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but a good amount of it actually is." I think that's a really good way of keeping things in perspective. On the whole, life is pretty good.
The bitter outlook of, "Life's not fair--get used to it!" has the underlying message of, "Life's not fair, and there's nothing you can do to change that." That's where I really think the failure lies. People need to learn how to deal with the little inconveniences and bouts of bad luck they don't deserve. There's no way to argue that. However, when teaching kids (and young adults...and older adults) about how "life isn't fair", it shouldn't be pitched as some absolute truth that nothing can be done about.
Life isn't fair. Alright, so what can we do to make it more fair? How can we as a community, as humanitarians, and above all as people make things better and more fair for everyone around us? Why should we have to blindly accept that the world is unfair?
So, yes, there are still going to be times when we don't get our way even though we should. Sometimes the world is still going to throw unnecessary curveballs at us that we aren't prepared to deal with, and there isn't much that we can do about that type of cosmic injustice. But, there are a million and one little ways to make someone else's day, as well as your own, run a little smoother. There are ways to alleviate suffering that require so little of your time and energy, and that will make life more fair for that person and for yourself. Being a good person costs nothing. Being kind to those around you is the easiest and best way to start making life a little more fair.
Maybe life and the universe, in general, aren't naturally geared towards being fair. Maybe our families and coaches and professors were right about that on some level. That doesn't mean that we can't all work every day towards making things fair. We don't have to get used to it. We can see it, recognize it for what it is, and work to change it for the better. That is something I could get used to.
