Life is Not Fair
Life is not fair and it cares little for our feelings or our plans.
~Lives of the Stoics, Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Ouch. That one hurts.
It’s a rough way of looking at things, no doubt, but it’s not entirely inaccurate.
It may seem pessimistic. It may seem harsh. But there’s truth to those words.
We all face different levels and types of diversity. We mistakenly attribute that to “life”. And this “life” is not fair. It is indiscriminate. It can seem cruel when we are going through difficult times. But it can also seem glorious when everything seems to be going our way.
Life itself, however, is inanimate; it’s an abstract concept. It cares little for our feelings or our plans because “life” doesn’t care about anything. We care. Or, at least we should. And maybe this is the area we should focus on.
After all, in true Stoic fashion, only concern yourself with the things that you can control. There’s a lot that happens in our lives that are far outside our control. There are elements that we can control, but in the big picture, we may fall a little short. We can eat well, exercise, pay attention to our mental health… and still get terminal cancer. You can’t control that. What can you control? How you approach the diagnosis, treatment, and how you carry yourself in light of them.
Life is not fair. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do our best to make life better — for ourselves, and for all we come across. We do that by focusing on what we can control, and doing it to the best or our abilities.
