It's not fair. Now get over it.

I don’t know how many times every day I hear the words “But
mom, it’s not fair!” You do not know how
much I hate this saying. My usual
response is either “life’s not fair,” or “Nope. Now get over it.” But the truth is our society tries very hard
to make life “fair.” Have you been to a
kids ball game lately? Most sports for
younger children don’t even keep score.
It’s not fair that the team who isn’t as good loses. We don’t want feelings hurt. We need to be fair.
Why have we decided to set our children up for failure? Is that not exactly what we are doing?! For real, think about it. Let’s keep this thought at the little league
level for a minute and run down a bunny trail. We (although we all know that the kids keep
score) don’t keep score because we don’t want to “label” the kids as “winners”
and “Losers.” This may cause them to
develop a stigma and may scar their tinder psyche, so we sugar coat things to
make everyone “feel good and bubbly” inside.
Because after all, isn’t that what’s important? We need to shelter our children from the
harshness of reality. That’s what we are
doing. Why can’t we just be honest? Why do we feel the need to always “protect”
our children from what’s real?
I see lots of problems being created by this mindset. First of all, life isn’t fair and life does have
winners and losers. Instead of
sheltering our children from that, why don’t we teach how to deal with life not
being fair and teach them to strive to be one of the “winners?” Very few times have I seen people “win” in
life and it be on accident. Greatness
doesn’t “just happen,” let me tell you…
It’s achieved by hard work and the failures that are required to develop
perfection. If my child doesn’t know
that there are people who are better at things than they are, what goals do
they have to set and how can they reach their potential? Yes, this means they have to lose. They have to fall, and they have to
fail. And I have to let them and be okay with that because they are
watching my reaction to determine how they react.
It’s ok to fail; it’s not ok to be ok with failure. Did you catch that?! Read it again. It’s ok to fail; it’s not ok to be ok with
failure. Failures happen, and that’s
ok. Our desire not to fail and our distain
of failing has to be our drive to achieve success and excellence. We won’t achieve greatness without trial and
error. If we never let our kids fail, we
also have never let them achieve greatness.
And back to my thoughts on “fair”. Life is not fair. No matter how hard we try to make things “equal”
or “fair,” it’s just not going to happen and we are usually only moving
ourselves backwards in the process. {Can
you think of “for instances” when our government tried to make things “fair” and
how well that usually works out} Get over it.
It was not fair that my dad died when I was nine. It’s not fair that my brother died at
42. It was not fair that my mother’s
father died when she was two. It’s not
fair that my little brother was born into a family who did unspeakable things
to him and his siblings. It was not fair
that my Godly grandmother got dementia, was confused, worried, tormented by the
“dark evil man” in the corner of the room that only she could see, and wasted
away to nearly nothing before God called her home. It’s not fair that my neighbor’s daughter was
9 months pregnant when God called her baby girl home and they never got to meet
her. It’s not fair that bad things happen to good
people and sometimes it seems like the bad guys come out on top. But it is okay. My life doesn’t have to be fair. My life is a tiny part in a bigger picture. And my God is just. Usually when I am worried about what’s fair I
am being self-centered anyway. Was it
fair that the most holy man on earth died on a cross with thieves after being
beaten and mocked? And this happened so
that he could pay the way for nasty sinners, like me and you?! Is that fair?! Was it fair that the men whom Jesus loved and
sent out to tell the world about him were jailed and killed? Can you point to any story in the bible that
is fair? Probably not…
Because It is the big
picture. The idea of “fair” didn’t come
from the bible. It’s a view of our
society. And it’s something we need to
pay close attention to because it is being indoctrinated into our kids daily,
and very often we are the ones doing it. Disappointment and heartaches happen. We don’t live in a perfect world. It is our job to equip our children for the
world that we do live in, not a utopia that we envision where life is fair and
failure is unheard of. This is the real
world. Life is 10% what happens to you
and 90% how you react to it. It’s not
fair, it’s not always fun, and it’s usually not pretty. When did we start believing society’s lie
that that was how it should be?