Life is not fair! Just like that. None of us chose it, so it’s just the luck of the draw.  In case you haven’t been around enough to know that yet, I’ll put down a few examples, but I do believe most people by the time they finish college or start working are well aware of this fact.

I’ve learned this lesson very early and the hard way. It used to infuriate me, the injustice of it, so much so that I fought other people’s battles as well as mine own. My mother and the Church tried to teach me that if you just work hard, do your best to be a good person and pray anything is possible. That was on the paper and since I was a child and they were the authorities I tried to believe it, even though my intuition was telling me differently. After all the prayers and hard work still resulted in failure to produce satisfactory results I rebelled.  It didn’t make life more fair, but it gave me a new perspective. Sometimes if you can’t beat them, join them.  

In high school I had a friend who was always seen as ‘the weak’ one, ‘the one left behind’ by the  group of friends she grew up with. She might have played into it but I saw a nice girl who just needs someone to have her back and occasionally give her a little push in ‘you can do it’ direction. So I appointed myself in that role. She was a really nice girl who also learned the lesson of exactly how unfair life is very early on. Thought she never talked about it I picked up on some clues of childhood trauma we might have shared and her mom filled in some of the blanks. My approach was ‘tough love’ and in retrospect I know it was the wrong one, but I also did hear about her becoming a confident, independent and self sufficient girl I was always hoping she would. We may no longer be friends but I am very glad to have had a friend like her and that she’s now everything I always knew she could be. 

Then there are people born into generational wealth and kept in a bubble, so that lesson may have came later in life or sometimes not at all. If you’re raised to believe that you deserve only the best and you were given the best by your parents and you were surrounded by kids/people like you, it usually takes a while to figure out it might not be all that fair and equal. 

Then there are those born into generational trauma that learn that very early on, before they even know how to process it. It takes a lot to break that cycle too, but I’ve seen some quite exquisite examples.  At one job I met a girl who broke the generational trauma like a pro. Life was unkind from the very beginning but she was and is a fighter for her better future. It is almost unbelievable all the obstacles she overcame and all that she has accomplished with little or no help from  who should have been her nearest and dearest. It did came with a lot of hard work but she never quit betting on herself. I’m grateful to have met her and for knowing her.  

Then there are those few people that are just so nice, kind and good that when a bad thing happens to them it almost feels like it has happened to you as well. I was blessed to know a few, not everyone gets that in life.  

There aren’t many people I’d describe as a ‘salt of the earth’ but I do know two that are married to each other. When I first met the husband I never would have thought that very soon I’ll see him as my big brother I wished I had. The wife was another unexpected gift from above. Most of us are villains in somebody’s story, but not these two. With world being such a small place I’ve met so many people who knew them and not a single one had anything but good to say about both of them. Those people are rare, so when life goes ugly on them it makes me wanna scream and break something. They have been through sickness and health, good and bad in the last couple of years and through it all they never complained and never lost hope and faith.  Every chance I get to spend time with them it’s like a little medicine for the soul.   

Then there are those with many ‘special skills’ as well as hard working ethic who can’t do better or more for themselves or their family simply because of the circumstances they find themselves in. That’s life’s unfairness in your face. My friends ( another couple) are so capable and hard working but they have so much more potential in them that they simply can’t use for more because of the box life has put them in. It’s not all dull and hopeless as one might think reading this, in fact they are some of the most interesting and fun people I know. The frustration you might be picking up on it’s mine, not theirs. There’s much to be said about people who just keep fighting, despite and in spite of it all.  With all that being said I’m not even gonna get into my own struggles to fight life in its own game. Late Queen’s ‘never complain, never explain’ sounds like a good life motto no matter where you are in life.  Complaining will get you nowhere and explaining to people who already have an opinion about you or your situation is pointless, so…carry on. 

I found a quote online allegedly by Dame Helen Mirren  that hit close to home( I say allegedly, because, well it’s on the internet) : “I don’t believe that if you do good, good things will happen. Everything is completely accidental and random. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people…. But at least if you try to do good things, then you’re spending your time doing something worthwhile.” 

*** ‘Live And Learn’ by The Cardigans