Life Isn’t Fair
"It's not fair" is the most accurate and most debilitating statement we can make.
It's accurate because it's absolutely true. Very few things in life seem fair. We've all been dealt a different hand, experience different things, and reap different outcomes. If there's one sure thing in this world, it's that life isn't fair. The lazy bum in the next cubicle who gets promoted before you. The less talented player who made the starting lineup. The freak car maintenance issue that unexpectedly set you back a few grand….right after you finally got back on your financial feet. The person with less experience who got the job because their Uncle Joe is friends with the hiring manager. We're struck daily with the "it's not fair" curse. Yeah, it's frustrating…..sometimes depressing.
I've had many versions of this in my life, but no greater or more painful than infertility. Sarah and I spent year after year trying to become parents, only to eventually find out we're unable to biologically have children. All the while, friends and family seemed to be birthing kids left and right. One of my closest friends had three kids while we were trying to become parents. Three separate births! I'll let you do the math on that, but that's a loooooong time. It wasn't fair. Even people around us who DIDN'T want kids were having kids. Ooopsie! Some people seemed to have kids simply by looking at each other…….or so it felt for us on our little infertility island.
"It's not fair." It's debilitating because it's an excuse to give up. If something isn't fair, we're doomed to fail. The cards are stacked against us and defeat is imminent. Giving up is the easy thing to do, and it's what is expected of us. In our culture, we're told to simply not try if something is unfair. So we don't try, we ultimately lose, and we get to blame it on how unfair it was in the first place. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is debilitating! The fact it's not fair isn't a predictor of outcomes, but it is a predictor of actions. That’s sad.
While Sarah and I were wallowing in our misery, we made an important choice. We couldn't turn off the pain or the hurt, but we could control what we could control (much to my dismay, making babies was not within our control). After mourning the loss of never being able to have biological children, we made the decision to adopt. It was a scary and unknown path for us, but we felt called to walk down that road. We certainly weren't in control, but we were able to progress what we could progress…….then trust.
So many things in life fall into this same camp. Most aren't as crappy as infertility, fortunately. We have two choices: give up and become a victim of this unfair world, or just keep moving. Please keep moving. Always keep moving. Never stop moving.