Taylor Darcy.com

This phrase is often heard from a child yelling at a parent. “It isn’t fair” or rather “But Mom! That’s not fair!” Most parents I know including my own say in response, “Life isn’t fair!” By its sheer nature life isn’t fair because what is fair for one person isn’t necessarily fair for another. I was sitting in my calculus class today attempting to do my second test. I realized that if life were fair I would get to use the book. I would probably end up with the grade I deserve as someone who was better at it and didn’t use the book would get as well. Often times in life it doesn’t matter what we do because it just isn’t fair. We can try as hard as we want but some situations aren’t going to work out for our good regardless of how much we want them to.

For instance, I’ll be sitting in traffic waiting for the light to turn green. The person that is coming the opposite way is driving and hoping the light doesn’t change to red. We both want it and we both can kind of get it. Just not at the same time. It’s not possible to have what we want always when we want it. So we have two choices, we can wait patiently until it is our turn and maximize what we do or we can sit and complain about it like a two year old.

On the one hand we are guaranteed that if we are patient and willing to work for it, pretty much anything in this life is possible. It is all about what we are willing to sacrifice to get it. Millionaire’s become rich because they are willing to sacrifice to obtain the money. No matter who you are you only have 24 hours in a day. Where you spend your time is where you treasure will be. It is also where your heart is, you cannot have it both ways. Now, that isn’t to say that you shouldn’t value money and work for it so that you can provide for yourself and the ones you love. But let’s face it at the end of the day (our life) we aren’t going to wish we spent more time at the office. We are going to wish we spent more time with those whom we love.

On the other hand, we can complain about and annoy everyone around us. I’m sure we all know these people, the ones that no matter how great life is, they find something to complain about. Nothing will ever make them happy and they are the ones that are stuck being the perpetual child that shouts, “It isn’t fair.” These are the people that you could give them all the money in the world, a great family, etc. and they would still not be happy.

Finally there are those people that no matter how bad life gets they won’t complain, they always find something great about it. These are the people that are annoying for the other reason. Because they aren’t realistic about what life is doing. Don’t get me wrong I’d take the eternal optimist over the pessimist any day of the week but I prefer a more moderate approach to life and that is realism.

To me realism is the happy balance between optimism and pessimism. It in essence is the ability to see things as they are and work with what you have, not giving in to the irrational thoughts of either extreme. To me this gives an individual the ability to deal more effectively when life “isn’t fair” and to rise above it when an individual’s circumstance isn’t what they want it to be. There needs to be more people like this in the world, those who can see life for what it is and not give in to those who can’t see the trees from the forest.

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