Yep, that’s true. We know that, intellectually. So why does it bother us so much, each time it’s proven true?
Some might say that’s the occasion of reaching adulthood, when a young person realizes that “life ain’t fair.” But even as adults, it seems we’re always disappointed to discover that fact anew.
Perhaps it comes from one of those few universal human truths, that everyone believes instinctively: life should be fair. We desperately want it to be. Fortunately, we live in a country where that’s still the expectation; it must be terribly frustrating to live in a heavily socialized society, where bureaucrats wield their considerable power arbitrarily.
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One of our favorite images is a photograph of two trees – conifers in the mountains. They’re only about 10 feet apart, but one tree has grown from a cone that fell on a big rock and is growing in a little crack in that rock, while the other has grown from a cone that fell in rich soil. That tree looks like a beautiful Christmas tree, tall and perfectly shaped; the tree in the rock is only a few feet high, and misshapen.
Does the tree on the rock envy the big, beautiful tree? It would be understandable, if it did. Simply by sheer chance, the big tree has had it easy: good soil, plenty of water, plenty of room to grow. In fact, but for the chance landing of its own seed on the rock, the little tree could have been just as big and beautiful. Is it any less deserving? In fact, hasn’t it struggled even harder? Why shouldn’t it have some of that easy life?
But the little tree, we expect, doesn’t look at it that way. It’s made a decent life for itself, growing a little when the seasons are good, holding its own when the seasons are difficult. Its needles catch sunlight and provide sustenance. And it, too, has produced cones of its own, following the inclination of all living things to perpetuate their kind.
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Life is like that. Siblings or classmates will make their way in the world, and some will have it easy while others struggle, for no apparent reason. “Life ain’t fair.”
If we let ourselves get caught up in what “should have been” or “could have been,” we’ll never find the peace that little tree must feel – the satisfaction of working hard on the tasks at hand and appreciating our successes as they come, however slight they may appear in comparison to someone else’s.
And if we harbor envy for the apparently larger successes of others, we diminish our own.
Truly, we make our own happiness, not necessarily through acquisitions or external beauty, but by maintaining an inner peace that comes from self-awareness, empathy, and forgiveness.
This editorial first appeared August 2007.
