Too many people I know and love are dealing with too many awful things right now. And so often, when discussing these situations, someone says, “life isn’t fair.”
I disagree. But not in the sense of reward and retribution. Rather, stuff happens to us all at random.
When I hear “life isn’t fair”, I think of someone who is screwing me knowing that there is nothing I can do about it. It’s a convenient excuse for too many people to do the wrong thing.
But then, look around, and you see good people dealing with children who die way too soon, getting fired by incompetent bosses, suffering from painful health conditions, struggling to get through life. None of that is fun, it happens to the best of us and the worst of us through no control of our own. It’s random.
Even a lot of the good things that happen are random. How did I get to be born in the United States? To parents who worked hard and valued education? I didn’t choose that. It happened.
Sure, you can put the odds slightly in your favor with hard work, healthy living, and honest dealings; you can twist them away from you by cutting corners, abusing drugs and alcohol, and ripping people off. But at the end of the day, on this earth, the good and bad things that happen to us have only a little to do with how good or bad we are.
It’s random. That’s all it is. From a mathematical perspective, then, it’s all fair.
