Life’s Not Always Fair Is It?

North Star of Georgia

One of our oldest and most universal question is “Why me?” Bad things happen to good people and it is not fair. Unfortunately the most painful truth and the hardest to accept is that life isn’t always fair. Bad things do happen to good people and all too often they happen when least deserved. On the flip side, we also see good things happen to people who don’t deserve them at all. Its very hard to cope when either of these “injustices” occur. Here’s the way I see it. We are all in charge and in control of our own actions; we have the free will to make choices whether they be good or bad. The unfortunate thing is that though some of us may be devoted to leading a fair and humanitarian lifestyle, others are not. And it is because of the choices others make that may leave us damaged and hurt in the middle of their warpath. Clearly we cannot simply shrug and say “well, that’s life and s* happens”. What we can do is learn to handle, and cope with it more effectively. Tim Hansel shared, “Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional.”  Counseling helps use to see the patterns in our behaviors (what we do and why we do it) and understand the source therefore allowing us the power to choose if we are going to continue in the same path, or change it. Our real success in life will be largely defined by how well we deal with adversity: whether we run from it or face up to it, whether we are broken by it or grow from it, and whether we surrender to it or triumph over it.  We live in an imperfect world with other imperfect people and therefore it is inevitable that we will experience pain. Life is hard and not always fair, but that doesn’t mean that it cant be rewarding and exciting and full of joy.