Sometimes, Life Just Isn’t Fair

It’s a cliché, but it’s oh, so true.  Life just isn’t fair.  However, when we all come out of our mother’s wombs, there’s no Certificate of Entitlement to a life without challenges, without trials, without tribulations.

My personal life has been anything but fair.  I have encountered challenge after challenge after challenge.  I have learned to cope with each and every obstacle handed to me; some have been persevered with grace and some have been blindly stumbled, fallen, tripped and gotten back up through.  However, this is not about me. 

I have continued to try and teach my children that life is not fair.  It is simply the way it is and the only thing they can control is how they react to life, how they learn to cope with each test.  Yet, how do you explain things like cancer.  They see that their mom beat cancer.  So, why can’t my daughter’s best friend’s mom beat cancer?  Why can't  our friend's young son beat cancer?  Why can’t my daughter's prior reading teacher beat her cancer?  Why did my son's teacher's husband and son die of cancer?  Why did my daughter's friend’s dad die of cancer?  Why did our family friend’s best friend die of cancer. 

Life isn’t fair as an answer just does not seem to offer these questions justice.  I do not know.  I still struggle with this myself.  My own faith has been questioned relentlessly over the past five years.  I am sorry.  I do not find faith or answers to these questions by seeking God or religion.  I will not apologize for believing that not one of these people has a “higher” purpose.  Their purpose is here, on Earth, with their families and loved ones until they hit their ripe old age…..not battling for their lives at age 35, 47, or having their lives ended in their 40s.  I do not wish to engage in religious debate or invoke anyone’s defense of their own beliefs.  I simply have not found my answers, nor comfort, in God or any other religious beliefs.

Life isn’t fair.  Life isn’t supposed to be fair.

I was further reminded of this recently in soccer, of all things.  Many people have complained one way, or another, of how pampered and/or coddled our children are becoming these days.  The best example of this is how our regional soccer program has a so-called mercy rule.  Once a team has a six point lead, you may not score any more because it is detrimental to the losing team.  Excuse me?  More detrimental than telling your team players to simply pass around and around and around the other team because you are more skilled than they are?  More detrimental than pulling a player and playing down a “man” against the other team?  I sound like a ripe grandma, but when I was this age sometimes we got creamed in soccer, and sometimes we were the team creaming another.  That is life.  What happens when these kids get out of school, beyond helicopter parents and into the real world that has no “mercy rule”?  These kids will not have learned to cope.  Our jobs do not offer you mercy; nor do real world challenges.  You deal.

As many of us curvy girls can relate – it really isn't fair:  some of us have great boobs, but no butt; some have the perfect hourglass figure but no brains; some of us have the best hips ever but no boobs; some of us have multiple kids and can still rock a bikini whereas others cannot even rock the Miraclesuits  – life just isn’t fair. 

But…..life is life.  We are living, breathing, given 365 times a year to wake up and start all over again.  Not every day will be good, but there will be some good in each day.  The next time your child thinks that life isn’t fair, hug that child, tell him that no, life isn’t fair but life is good.  The next time you think life isn’t fair, remind yourself that your life is full of blessings and each moment that isn’t “fair” is a moment to reflect on all that you do have.  Life isn’t fair.  Life is short.  Embrace it.  Live it.  Love it.