Is Life unfair?

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The problem isn’t that life is unfair – it’s your broken idea of fairness

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.

Let’s try.

Rule #1: Life is a competition

That business you work for? Someone’s trying to kill it. That job you like? Someone would love to replace you with a computer program. That girlfriend / boyfriend / high-paying job / Nobel Prize that you want? So does somebody else.

We’re all in competition, although we prefer not to realise it. Most achievements are only notable relative to others. You swam more miles, or can dance better, or got more Facebook Likes than the average. Well done.

It’s a painful thing to believe, of course, which is why we’re constantly assuring each other the opposite. “Just do your best”, we hear. “You’re only in competition with yourself”. The funny thing about platitudes like that is they’re designed to make you try harder anyway. If competition really didn’t matter, we’d tell struggling children to just give up.

Fortunately, we don’t live in a world where everyone has to kill each other to prosper. The blessing of modern civilisation is there’s abundant opportunities, and enough for us all to get by, even if we don’t compete directly.

But never fall for the collective delusion that there’s not a competition going on. People dress up to win partners. They interview to win jobs. If you deny that competition exists, you’re just losing. Everything in demand is on a competitive scale. And the best is only available to those who are willing to truly fight for it.

Rule #2. You’re judged by what you do, not what you think

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. What exactly can you and have you done for the world?

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.

We like to like to think that society rewards those who do the best work. Like so:

But in reality, social reward is just a network effect. Reward comes down mostly to the number of people you impact:

Write an unpublished book, you’re nobody. Write Harry Potter and the world wants to know you. Save a life, you’re a small-town hero, but cure cancer and you’re a legend. Unfortunately, the same rule applies to all talents, even unsavoury ones: get naked for one person and you might just make them smile, get naked for fifty million people and you might just be Kim Kardashian.

You may hate this. It may make you sick. Reality doesn’t care. You’re judged by what you have the ability to do, and the volume of people you can impact. If you don’t accept this, then the judgement of the world will seem very unfair indeed.

Rule #3. Our idea of fairness is self interest

People like to invent moral authority. It’s why we have referees in sports games and judges in courtrooms: we have an innate sense of right and wrong, and we expect the world to comply. Our parents tell us this. Our teachers teach us this. Be a good boy, and have some candy.

But reality is indifferent. You studied hard, but you failed the exam. You worked hard, but you didn’t get promoted. You love her, but she won’t return your calls.

The problem isn’t that life is unfair; it’s your broken idea of fairness.

Take a proper look at that person you fancy but didn’t fancy you back. That’s a complete person. A person with years of experience being someone completely different to you. A real person who interacts with hundreds or thousands of other people every year.

Now what are the odds that among all that, you’re automatically their first pick for love-of-their-life? Because – what – you exist? Because you feel something for them? That might matter to you, but their decision is not about you.

Similarly we love to hate our bosses and parents and politicians. Their judgements are unfair. And stupid. Because they don’t agree with me! And they should! Because I am unquestionably the greatest authority on everything ever in the whole world!

It’s true there are some truly awful authority figures. But they’re not all evil, self-serving monsters trying to line their own pockets and savour your misery. Most are just trying to do their best, under different circumstances to your own.

Maybe they know things you don’t – like, say, your company will go bust if they don’t do something unpopular. Maybe they have different priorities to you – like, say, long term growth over short term happiness.

But however they make you feel, the actions of others are not some cosmic judgement on your being. They’re just a byproduct of being alive.

Why life isn’t fair

Our idea of fairness isn’t actually obtainable. It’s really just a cloak for wishful thinking.

Can you imagine how insane life would be if it actually was ‘fair’ to everyone? No-one could fancy anyone who wasn’t the love of their life, for fear of breaking a heart. Companies would only fail if everyone who worked for them was evil. Relationships would only end when both partners died simultaneously. Raindrops would only fall on bad people.

Most of us get so hung up on how we think the world should work that we can’t see how it does. But facing that reality might just be the key to unlocking your understanding of the world, and with it, all of your potential.

http://oliveremberton.com/2014/the-...e-is-unfair-its-your-broken-idea-of-fairness/

I thought this was a damn good read and figured I'd share it with you guys to see if you feel this is the correct line of thinking. I know for me, these past few years of being sober and helping others as opposed to only being concerned with myself and what I get out of anything seems to have improved my life greatly.

 

[terry78]

Everything would cancel everything else out if we all got what we wanted. Sometimes to get what you want someone else has to go without.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Everything would cancel everything else out if we all got what we wanted. Sometimes to get what you want someone else has to go without.

That's only in direct competition, though. As the article states a lot of folks feel that just because they are a good person or hard-worker that life owes them something which is not how the world works.

 

[KevanG]

The only sane thing to do is burn it all down.

 

[C. Lee]

If life was fair....the first post would be condensed so that people would read it.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

If life was fair....the first post would be condensed so that people would read it.

I've always been of the mindset that people are lazy and don't want to do things like click on links, therefore I put it all in the post for easy user-friendly consumption.

 

[C. Lee]

I've always been of the mindset that people are lazy and don't want to do things like click on links, therefore I put it all in the post for easy user-friendly consumption.

And from my experience....I find that many Hypsters won't read long articles....Catch-22.

 

[Fallen Angel]

Life is unfair but it only gives out what it thinks you can take.

 

[Enriquespy]

What is life? And how can it choose or decide to be fair? It's like sayin that the sun is nice. It's not nice, it just is. Life just is, it doesn't abide by a code of conduct. We do.

Are you fair?

 

[Kyle]

That last image says it all.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

And from my experience....I find that many Hypsters won't read long articles....Catch-22.

In my experience, those who don't want to take 3 minutes to read a long post are uneducated swine.

Seriously though, people are freaking lazy either way you go about it I guess. I know I'm guilty of just reading many headlines and never bothering to read the actual story. That's why these stupid clickbait articles are everywhere and get reposted by morons on social media.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Is Life unfair?

Here we are posting in a forum fo' fun, while some little brotha out there is walking miles to get some goddamn water and hoping he dont run into a lion.

My biggest issue is which toilet paper to buy, the one with da bear or lumberjack bastah on the cover.

 

[Assassin32]

Life is chaos, and chaos is fair. The Joker knows what I'm talking about.

 

[SpideyInATree]

Of course life is unfair. Without the unfairness it wouldn't make life interesting.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, while there's always someone who is doing better than you, I take solace in knowing that there is always someone doing worse.

 

[KevanG]

Well, while there's always someone who is doing better than you, I take solace in knowing that there is always someone doing worse.

Like Reek.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Yes, No, maybe... I don't know

Can you repeat the question?

 

[KevanG]

Malcolm, you're grounded.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Depends on who you ask.

Malcolm, you're grounded.

Not the best reply.

 

[KevanG]

Someone hasn't watched Malcolm in the Middle. :

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Someone hasn't watched Malcolm in the Middle. :

You're not the boss of me now.

 

[Jake Cassidy]

Of course life is unfair. The two cool Beatles are dead.

 

[Rocketman]

There isn't really such a thing as "fair" or "unfair" or even "rules". Nobody really "deserves" anything or has "worked hard" for anything. There really isn't such a thing as a "good" person or a "bad" person.

Humans just kind of made all this B.S. up. Nothing else in nature cares.

The Universe will do whatever it does, and there's zero reason for it.

 

[Lighthouse]

I think that cartoon is pretty narrowly defined and simplistic. It seems to address everything from middle class point of view.

 

[moviedoors]

There isn't really such a thing as "fair" or "unfair" or even "rules". Nobody really "deserves" anything or has "worked hard" for anything. There really isn't such a thing as a "good" person or a "bad" person.

Humans just kind of made all this B.S. up. Nothing else in nature cares.

The Universe will do whatever it does, and there's zero reason for it.

"Deserve's got nothing to do with it." -William Munny.

"Life sucks; wear a helmet." -Dennis Leary.