Community

Have you ever asked yourself why life seems so unfair?

Shavon Dion Bethel asked........What do you do when nothing is going your way? Do you ask, “Why me?” or do you look for what your life is trying to tell you? How you choose to respond to the difficult things that happen to you can mean the difference between a life of anger…or joy. The truth is, life is just playing by different rules. The real rules are there. They actually make sense. But they’re a bit more complicated, and a lot less comfortable, which is why most people never manage to learn them. Society judges people by what they can do for others. Can you save children from a burning house, or remove a tumour, or make a room of strangers laugh? You’ve got value right there. That’s not how we judge ourselves though. We judge ourselves by our thoughts. “I’m a good person”. “I’m ambitious”. “I’m better than this.” These idle impulses may comfort us at night, but they’re not how the world sees us. They’re not even how we see other people. Well-meaning intentions don’t matter. An internal sense of honour and love and duty count for squat. Abilities are not prized by their virtue. Whatever admiration society awards us, comes from the selfish perspectives of others. A hard working janitor is less rewarded by society than a ruthless stockbroker. A cancer researcher is rewarded less than a supermodel. Why? Because those abilities are rarer and impact more people. To think that life is fair is irrational. This specific distortion of our thoughts is called the doctrine of Fairness. It basically says that somewhere in our head, we sometimes think like a child that all of life “should be fair riding on some fantasy. Life is indeed unfair. Once you accept that basic and unfortunate aspect of living, you can move on to the next step — and energize you to move forward. Imagine all of the energy you’ll be saving from not having this particular thought always running around in your head anymore! Life is sometimes unfair. We experience loss, pain and injury. Sometimes terrible things happen to us through no fault of our own. We want someone or something to blame. Many times, we believe that God has failed us. A few weeks ago, I was feeling really down. You know one of those weeks that starts off with a hick-up and before you know it your thoughts have spiraled down into a bit of a dark place. I found myself sitting on my bed one night, almost in tears, thinking about how unfair life sometimes is. And specifically how unfair it was that my mother is not alive anymore to see her grandchildren grow up. How unfair it was that she lost her battle to kidney failure although she did thing in her life possible to live healthy. How unfair it was that she passed away too early. How unfair it was that my nephews and nieces did not knew her. How unfair life was, especially when it comes to illness and death. Yes, life is difficult and unbearable and awful sometimes. I have experienced some of it, I am sure you have and we all see it every time we switch on the news. However, what we focus on is what we see. What we focus on is what we attract. So if we walk around thinking life is unfair, we will see all the unfair things. We are subconsciously focusing on the negative, like when you’re sick and all you seem to see are other sick people around you. When we walk around with a positive mindset and see the positives in this world, we will see more of it. We will also experience more positives and automatically the more difficult things in life will be easier to deal with. So yes, life can seem unfair sometimes but we can’t concentrate on that. We can’t walk around life with that mindset. I am choosing to have a positive mindset and to tell myself that life is good. I am choosing to teach my love ones the same thing. I do not want them to walk around life thinking that life is not fair. And I have caught myself telling my family that life is unfair and it was then that I realized I shouldn’t teach this to them. I should teach them to look for the positives, to look for the good. We are actually all so lucky that we are alive. That we woke up this morning, that our hearts are beating and we are breathing. We are part of this universe and we can leave a tiny footprint on this world. Let’s not take this for granted. Let’s be thankful and let’s celebrate life. Let’s celebrate the good things instead of concentrating on the negative things. What do you do when nothing is going your way? Do you ask, “Why me?” or do you look for what your life is trying to tell you? How you choose to respond to the difficult things that happen to you can mean the difference between a life of anger…or joy. The truth is, life is just playing by different rules. The real rules are there. They actually make sense. But they’re a bit more complicated, and a lot less comfortable, which is why most people never manage to learn them. Society judges people by what they can do for others. Can you save children from a burning house, or remove a tumour, or make a room of strangers laugh? You’ve got value right there. That’s not how we judge ourselves though. We judge ourselves by our thoughts. “I’m a good person”. “I’m ambitious”. “I’m better than this.” These idle impulses may comfort us at night, but they’re not how the world sees us. They’re not even how we see other people. Well-meaning intentions don’t matter. An internal sense of honour and love and duty count for squat. Abilities are not prized by their virtue. Whatever admiration society awards us, comes from the selfish perspectives of others. A hard working janitor is less rewarded by society than a ruthless stockbroker. A cancer researcher is rewarded less than a supermodel. Why? Because those abilities are rarer and impact more people. To think that life is fair is irrational. This specific distortion of our thoughts is called the doctrine of Fairness. It basically says that somewhere in our head, we sometimes think like a child that all of life “should be fair riding on some fantasy. Life is indeed unfair. Once you accept that basic and unfortunate aspect of living, you can move on to the next step — and energize you to move forward. Imagine all of the energy you’ll be saving from not having this particular thought always running around in your head anymore! Life is sometimes unfair. We experience loss, pain and injury. Sometimes terrible things happen to us through no fault of our own. We want someone or something to blame. Many times, we believe that God has failed us. A few weeks ago, I was feeling really down. You know one of those weeks that starts off with a hick-up and before you know it your thoughts have spiraled down into a bit of a dark place. I found myself sitting on my bed one night, almost in tears, thinking about how unfair life sometimes is. And specifically how unfair it was that my mother is not alive anymore to see her grandchildren grow up. How unfair it was that she lost her battle to kidney failure although she did thing in her life possible to live healthy. How unfair it was that she passed away too early. How unfair it was that my nephews and nieces did not knew her. How unfair life was, especially when it comes to illness and death. Yes, life is difficult and unbearable and awful sometimes. I have experienced some of it, I am sure you have and we all see it every time we switch on the news. However, what we focus on is what we see. What we focus on is what we attract. So if we walk around thinking life is unfair, we will see all the unfair things. We are subconsciously focusing on the negative, like when you’re sick and all you seem to see are other sick people around you. When we walk around with a positive mindset and see the positives in this world, we will see more of it. We will also experience more positives and automatically the more difficult things in life will be easier to deal with. So yes, life can seem unfair sometimes but we can’t concentrate on that. We can’t walk around life with that mindset. I am choosing to have a positive mindset and to tell myself that life is good. I am choosing to teach my love ones the same thing. I do not want them to walk around life thinking that life is not fair. And I have caught myself telling my family that life is unfair and it was then that I realized I shouldn’t teach this to them. I should teach them to look for the positives, to look for the good. We are actually all so lucky that we are alive. That we woke up this morning, that our hearts are beating and we are breathing. We are part of this universe and we can leave a tiny footprint on this world. Let’s not take this for granted. Let’s be thankful and let’s celebrate life. Let’s celebrate the good things instead of concentrating on the negative things.