Let me start this with complete and transparent
honesty: I am writing this from a place of pain. There.
Now that that’s out of the way…Life Is Not Fair.
I said it. I
meant it. Life isn’t fair. That phrase is as old as the day is
long. Anyone who has existed on this
planet for more than 2.2 seconds knows that life isn’t fair. But maybe that’s a good thing.
I mean, we always complain about the unfairness of
life. But that assumes that if life WERE
fair, we would all live in mansions, have millions of dollars in the bank, not
have to work, have perfect health, and nothing bad or sad would ever happen. But what if life being fair meant that we
were all broke, jobless, sick, homeless, hungry, and that nothing good would
ever happen? I mean, that’s fair, too,
right? As long as everything is the same
status for everyone all the time, it’s fair.
Maybe the fact that life isn’t fair gives us
hope. I could give you a million reasons
on my bad days why life isn’t fair. I
could whine and complain and moan with the best of them. But life isn’t fair, which means maybe
tomorrow will be better. Maybe my pain
won’t be so pronounced. The unfairness
of life gives me hope that my circumstance has the possibility of
changing. Maybe the circumstance will
never get better or be different. But I
have hope. Not because I know the
future. Not because I can change it on
my own. But because the unfairness of
life, by its very nature, gives hope that as things are is not how they will
remain.
And so, while I don’t know what the future holds, be
it tomorrow, next year, or a decade down the road, I will work and I will
hope. I will work to hold on to all that
is good and beautiful. I will work to
show love and respect and nurture the relationships that surround and uphold
me. I will work to better myself physically,
mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
I will work to raise my son to be kind and compassionate, free and
giving, loving and spirited. And I will
hope that all the places that are beyond my control, those things that feel low
and sad and unfixable and unfair will give way to inexplicable joy. And maybe they won’t. But maybe they will. And that is enough for today…
