Distributed by curators in SELF

Lighten Up by Knowing How Life’s Balancing Act Makes Us Equal

What you look like or how much money you have does not make you blessed or cursed

Aladdin, in Disney’s 2019 film of the same name, lives in the streets of Agrabah city. He and his monkey Abu meet Princess Jasmine, who is loitering in the streets to live a day like a commoner. Aladdin wants to live like a prince, but Princess Jasmine wishes the exact opposite.

I think that no one is blessed or cursed in life. Sometimes, we feel the unfairness and inequality of life, but we should not take it to heart.

Those who are excellent at studying may not be good at sports. While those good at sports wish they could be smarter in studies.

‘Life is unfair’ can never be a correct statement. Why? Because life consists of numerous events and situations. You may believe that these life-situations are unfair while you are living through them.

Many of us have developed a habit of overthinking — we dwell on the problem for so long that we often overlook the most obvious solution.

We want to feel special by imagining that we have been wronged. If the universal forces are conspiring against us, we have to be uncommon.

Why not try a new and arguably simpler perspective?

You have to believe that life balances things out for everyone in the long run. To understand life from this new angle, you must realize that life is huge. A million things go into creating our perception of our wellbeing. Our parents, siblings, kids, health, money, fame, education, intelligence, emotional life, marriages, accidents, and many other things help our mind in deciding our sense of wellbeing.

Life balances things out because our minds create relative values of things in our lives rather than absolute values. The moment you have enough money, other things become more valuable. If you lose the love of your life, all of your wealth becomes meaningless in an instant.

In real life, Buddha was a prince who chose to experience a simple life. For him, wealth and power were of little value.

Almost all the poor boys and girls dream to live like kings and queens. Some of them succeed. People like Steve Jobs, Lady Gaga, and Oprah not only achieved their dreams, but they have created an impact on the lives of millions of people. Was life fair to them?

“I was raped at nine years old by a cousin, then again by another family member, and another family member,” Oprah said on her show. Lady Gaga was raped when she was 19 years old. Walter Isaacson, in his book Steve Jobs, wrote that “Jobs confided to close friends that he was driven by the pain he was feeling about being put up for adoption and not knowing about his birth parents.”

Most of us object to living a life that is unjust. Think about it: is life unfair if it is unfair to all of us, or is our idea of unfairness somehow flawed?

We have assumed that if we have two parents who do not fight with each other, one or two siblings who are amazing guys, an expensive car, a house with a swimming pool, and a steady income — for which we don’t have to work hard — our life would be fair.

We think like this: disease is unfair, less income is unfair. If I don’t like the color of my skin, life is unfair. If my father, or my mother, died an untimely death, life is unfair. If my boss fired me because of my poor performance, life is unfair — and so on.

All the ‘bad’ things do not happen to all of us. We only get our share of the things we don’t like. We are not willing to accept anything against our socially accepted beliefs of what is fair.

Life treats everybody the same way, and this thing makes us all practically equal. If we were intelligent, we would try to cooperate to tackle the issues we have to face in our lives rather than becoming depressed about a non-issue.

If you still believe life is unfair, what can you do about it? Nothing. It is because life is not a person or an entity — it is an idea in our minds.

When you say life is not fair, you are actually saying that you do not like what is happening to you as a result of your choices and the choices of those around you. The statement that ‘life is unfair’ can depress you. But admitting that your decisions had something to do with how life feels may give the control back to you.

The idea of relative values of things for different people was magnificently captured by novelist Roald Dahl. In Warner Brother’s 2005 adaptation of the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka — the eccentric owner of the chocolate factory — did not think that family was important. But the kid, Charlie Bucket, was willing to decline the offer of becoming an heir to the chocolate factory if he had to live apart from his family.

A Case Study: Suppose you have a father, a mother, and two siblings. You immigrated to the US from Kenya ten years ago. Your family’s annual income is $40,000. You are all healthy, and your mother makes you a tasty breakfast every morning. Now, would you like to increase your pay to $80,000 if, as a result of this increase, life gave some incurable disease to your mother? Your answer would be a big no.

But some people have an income of $80,000, and they develop an incurable disease. Money can do nothing to save them.

Which scenario is unfair? Having less money and perfect health or having more income with an incurable disease?

If you count the number of times when life was fair to you, the number would be higher than when life did not seem fair.

Life is not fair or unfair to anyone; our life is a result of choices made by us and those around us.

It is a sad example but would you like to be the CEO of Apple if the cost was death by cancer? Steve Jobs had money, but he is no longer with his wife and children. You or your parents may not have that kind of money, but you may be enjoying excellent health.

It doesn’t mean that bad things don’t happen to poor people, or good things don’t happen to rich people. It means that good and bad things can happen to anybody.

Life is not a person that is sitting on a throne, manipulating our lives in wicked ways by doling out unfairness and injustice. These ideas are the leftovers from the days of religious thinking.

Takeaway

The wrongdoings of our loved ones or strangers are not part of some divine plan but reflect the actions of individuals who committed them — their actions sometimes create a feeling that life is unfair.

Since life consists of a great many events spread over almost a century, it creates a sort of balance where everybody realizes that good and bad things can happen to anybody.

What matters is that how we take life as it comes at us fast. How we think about it and how we respond to it.

We can take control by understanding that we are responsible for everything that happens to us. We can live our lives by making choices that help us create outcomes we like.

You were not treated unjustly by life. You have to make your life ‘fair’ by making the right choices.

Either you are responsible for what is happening to you or someone around you is accountable. Live a deliberate life, make wise choices for you and those around you.