Fairness

This aritcle was written by a man known as Zentai to the online recovery community.



Fairness


If the world were so organized that everything had to be fair, no living creature could survive for a day! The birds would be forbidden to eat worms and everyone's self interests would have to be served. We are conditioned to look for justice in life and when it doesn't appear we tend to feel anger, anxiety, or frustration. Actually, it would be equally productive to search for the Fountain of Youth or some such myth. Justice does not exit! It never has, and it never will. The world is not put together that way. Robins eat worms. Spiders eat flies, that's not fair to the flies.

You only have to look at nature to realize there is no justice in the world. Tornado's, floods, tsunami, droughts are all unfair. It's a mythological concept, this justice business. The world and the people in it go on being unfair every day. You can choose to be happy or unhappy but it has nothing to do with the lack of justice or fairness you see around you. This is not a sour view of humanity and the world but rather an accurate report of what the world is like.
Justice is simply a concept that has almost no applicability, particularly as it pertains to your own beliefs about fulfillment and happiness. But too many of us tend to demand that fairness be an inherent part of our relationships with others. We say things like "It isn't fair. You have no right to do that if I can't." Or, "Would I do that to you?" We seek justice and use the lack of it as a justification for unhappiness. The demand for justice is not neurotic behavior. It only becomes an immobilization when you punish yourself with a negative emotion as you fail to see evidence of the justice that you so futily demand. In this case the self defeating behavior is not the demand for justice but the immobilization that may result from "no justice reality".

Contradictorily, our culture promises justice. Politicians refer to it in all their campaign speeches, yet day after day, century after century, the lack of justice continues. Poverty, war, pestilence, crime, prostitution, dope and murder persist generation after generation in public and private life, and if the history of humanity can be used as a guide, they will continue. Therefore, injustice is a constant, but you in your infinite new esteem can decide to fight that injustice and refuse to be seduced into being emotionally immobilized over it. You can work at helping to eradicate injustice and you can decide that you won't be psychologically defeated by it.

The legal system promises justice. The people demand justice and some of them even work to make it happen, but generally it doesn't. Prisons are full of poor people - not as many with money, power, and position. You know that. Those with money are not convicted; judges and policemen are often bought off by the powerful. A President and Vice President are pardoned and wrist slapped for obvious felonies. The poor people in the jails have next to no chance of beating the system. It's not fair, but it's true. The demand for justice may infiltrate your personal relationships and prevent you from communicating effectively with others. The "It's not fair" slogan is one of the more common and destructive laments made by one person against another. In order for you to consider something unfair you must compare yourself to another individual or group of individuals.

The reality that life is not fair seems to be one of the most difficult and painful concepts for people to accept. Perhaps the reason for this is that our western linear model implies that it is a fair world and if you work hard enough and long enough, you will achieve your goals. Perhaps the ideals behind the creation of our cultures, the values of equality and fairness for all, have led us to assume that this is the way the world should work. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that we want the world to be fair. We want to be able to depend on something concrete and we want some guarantees for our safety, security, and well-being. The fact that these guarantees do not exist does not stop us from wanting them. Many of our defense mechanisms, our illusions, and our denials have to do with not accepting the fact that life is unfair. It is not sad; it is just one of life's truths.

Life is not fair because "fairness" is a value judgment. This means that what is fair is subjective - it changes according to who is rating what and when and why. What is fair to me today may no longer be fair tomorrow or in different circumstances or around different people.. An example: the promotion that I worked hard for but was given to you is not fair to me but very fair according to your perspective. And even if you agree with me that it was not fair, next month you will justify the fairness of it by believing you are doing a good job.

The importance of the concept that life is not fair is not in the explanation of it but in the acceptance. The question, "Why not?" is a crazy-making one. There will always be reasons why life should be fair to you and you may spend hours defending, denying, fighting, or being depressed because something unfair has happened again. The big issues of unfairness, the life-and-death issues, will never be explained in a way that makes sense. There is no answer to the why question when someone you love is dying. We may know the how - cancer, heart disease, another disease, accident - but we will never know the why. And pondering the why causes dysfunctional behavior. This is a very different process from accepting and grieving. Grief eventually ends; it is a natural process. Wondering why may never end; it is unproductive. At some point, we must let go of the why, accept the reality, and get on with the living.

Trying to make the world fair is both destructive and self-defeating. Many good-natured people run around trying to fix the unfairness of it all. Some of these we call codependents, some are living martyrs. Codependents and living martyrs tend to be filled with anger, resentment, envy, and insecurity. The nonacceptance of this concept creates bitterness, unhappiness, and unnecessary pain and prevents the possibility of growth. This is truly not fair!

The paradox here is that the acceptance of the reality that life is unfair often leads to behaviors which are more objective, more loving and caring, and more realistic than the behaviors of the non accepting. These accepting ones are often perceived as more "fair" than those who are trying to force the world to be fair.