5 Things You Should Remember When Life Is Unfair

Photo: Anthony Tran, Unsplash

The longer I live, the more unfair things have happened to me.

Being dumped by a girlfriend. Losing an award because my boss was mad at me. Losing half of a precious day off because a tire blew.

Yet unfairness is not unusual; it enters every life — yours, mine, everybody’s.

Unfairness is both normal and unavoidable. Countless philosophers and powerful figures have told us this.

I became so tired of suffering from unfair situations that I created a coping mechanism that allowed me to dismiss the unfairness that I couldn’t let go of. I coped with the unfair situation by telling myself, “Well, I just won the negative lottery.” (It works for me.)

In the decades that have passed since I invented the negative lottery, I have learned a lot. Here are six thoughts on the unfairness of life:

Do I still rail against the unfairness of life? Yes, but for less time and with less suffering. When my Kindle broke by accident, I put it in a trashcan, immediately let go of the event, and continued with my day. It was harder to let go of accidentally deleting my Medium publication, but I was able to do it by the next day. One way I could tolerate the loss was to see the loss as an opportunity to focus on displaying only my best articles.

Dealing with unfairness is challenging, but as with any setback, it gives us an opportunity to develop resilience against future woes, feel the joy of overcoming adversity, and become better people than who we are today.

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Retired therapist. Married 26 years. Loves board games, serious movies. Very curious about everything. Over 13,600 people are following my articles.

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Gregg Williams, MFT

Retired therapist. Married 26 years. Loves board games, serious movies. Very curious about everything. Over 13,600 people are following my articles.