livingwithablackdog

It’s one of the first things children learn to say.

“It’s not fair!”

It could be.

It might be.

It might not be.

Lots of the time it’s not.

I was picturing life as fair a couple of weeks ago.

There was an endless row of storks lined up for miles on end, each with its very special bundle to deliver.

Each bundle was allocated – not necessarily the same things but things of the same weight and number.

So each stork took on ‘x’ amount of tragedy and ‘y’ amount of suffering and ‘b’ amount of joy and ‘c’ amount of strengths and ‘m’ proportion of weaknesses.  And then there was a minimum space indicator allocated for tragedies and suffering – so they couldn’t come on top of each other – because “fair” – as we all know – allows time for healing.  And each of these little bundles then was given a special value key that they would hold each other’s strengths and weaknesses, joys and sufferings, tragedies and so forth as as valuable or important as their own.

But life’s not like that.

Storks are impatient creatures.

They fly out when they’re good and ready and often when the load’s not ready to go.

And tragedies and suffering, joy and strength and weakness don’t get dished out in measured helpings at nice comfortable intervals either.

No.  Life’s not fair.

It’s not really designed to be.

In lots of ways we’d be a lot more content if we all stopped looking for fair.

Sure, I think that we should act in a way that is decent and even-handed to others when we get the choice … but there will always be someone who thinks that a choice wasn’t fair.

Why do I have treatment resistant Depression?  I don’t know.  Essentially because I had brain surgery for an aneurysm that they found.

Would it be more fair if it hadn’t been found and I’d have died in tact in my mid-20s?

What sort of question is that?  Both were possibilities.  Neither seem ‘fair’ to people who love me or my family.

Do we have to remain in some kind of pristine condition for things to be ‘fair’ then?

How old do you have to be before it is ‘fair’ for your body to start deteriorating?

No, if we go by what we usually think of as ‘fair’ then almost nothing is fair.

I don’t think life is designed to be fair.

I think it’s about growing and letting ourselves learn from the things we encounter.

I’ve met quite a lot of people who have been through a lot who are wise.

I think that they’ve learned what they could from the hard times and the scars that they’ve left.

So I’ve set my sights anew.

I want to be wise.

(but maybe by learning efficiently, not by having too many lessons????)