Sometimes, when we are bitching and moaning about life, it’s because there is a perception of unfairness. In our minds, we seem to carry a ledger which assumes that life should be fair. It is like we have a picture in our minds of a God which has handed out equal amounts of fairness to every individual on the planet. But when life clashes with this notion we tend to feel hard done sometimes bemoaning the unfairness of it all.
It is interesting that many people carry around a rule which states “life should be fair”. I certainly carried around a mental rule like this for many a year. It caused no end of trouble! The rule can be transcended, like anything it takes some work, but it can be done.
We could look to many sources for why this rule has been built up in our heads. More importantly, it is in our interests to discern that the rule actually does not fit day to day reality. We have an abundance of evidence for the unfairness of life, not so much for the fairness of life.
If we can accept and embrace that life is and will be unfair at times, and that there is no entity handing out measures of fairness, then we tend to have an easier time with life. It is not easy to embrace unfairness, but accepting it fully can be very liberating.
The catch to it all, is to not get into a negative mind set where we walk around looking for the unfairness of life. Instead when we notice that life has been unfair, we embrace it and then let it go fully. It is the not clinging to the unfairness of life which makes the difference.
Weird, I almost commented on a previous post, about the school shooting, and my comment was that it makes me angry that life is unfair, or even sadistic. I have either not accepted this, or I’ve “accepted” it in a way that’s made me bitter. I can’t seem to solve this problem of an apparently evil God and of being a victim. I don’t want to try to do anything in a world like this. What’s the point? … so the thinking goes.
If we look only at the evil in the world that’s what we will see and that’s what we will convince ourselves off. Ingrained anger is a state of being, that state clouds and fogs our minds. in that state it is extremely difficult to see anything other than negatives. But, it is possible with work, to live a completely different life with a completely different mindset.