It's Not Fair!

Anybody who has ever been anywhere near another human being has probably heard "It's not fair!" and probably in a really annoying whiny voice. If you're anything like my mom you probably respond with something like, "Get over it. Life isn't fair." or "Newsflash! Earth to Dianne! Life is just not fair." We all know this is true but what would it look like if life really was fair? What does "fair" even mean?

First, let's just get this out of the way: We all know that fairness in this world just isn't possible. Why? Because fair looks like something different to you than it does to me. For example: There are people who think that it isn't fair that Mark Cuban has oodles of money when there are lots of families out there who can barely make it and are losing their homes. So, how do we make it fair? Do we employ a Robin Hood mentality and take most of Mark's money and spread it around? Would that make the world more fair? I doubt that Mark Cuban would think so. He would say that his money was made through hard work, ingenuity and savvy handling of his money. Why should the products of his endeavor be given to someone else who didn't work for them? So you see our dilemma. If we make it "fair" for one person, we usually make it "unfair" to someone else.

So let's take a deeper look into "it's not fair." What are we really saying? We are really saying that the scales are not tilting our way right now. Our human existence is not supposed to be uncomfortable, right? God forbid anything bad ever happen to me because I don't like it. When my mom told me to "get over it" she was really saying that trials and tribulations are a part of life. Sometimes the scales are just not going to tilt your way and no amount of whining is going to change that no matter how justified you might feel at the time.

Let's be clear, however. Fairness and justice are two very different things. For instance, according to a Yale University study in 2007, black defendants are 3 times more likely to get the death penalty than white defendants when the victim was white. That's not unfair. That's unjust. Taking all of Mark Cuban's money and spreading it around so that everyone has an equal amount might seem fair but it would definitely be unjust (i.e. theft.) Unfortunately, injustice is also a fact of life. I'm not too worried about the world being unfair but it does bother me a lot when it's unjust.

I guess this is the part where I come up with a solution. I don't have one. We need to pick our battles. Let's not get our panties in a twist when life isn't fair. Our whining accomplishes nothing except causing the powers-that-be to tune us out. Let's save our voices for injustice and make them heard when they really count. I'm cynical enough to think it probably won't work but at least I will not die knowing that I encountered injustice and did nothing.