Life is not fair

When a hungry lion devours a harmless sheep, is it fair? It depends on one’s point of view. To the sheep, it’s definitely unfair. He’s being brutally and intentionally murdered without provocation. But to the lion, it is fair. He’s hungry and here is available dinner. What is right?

How about when we eat our favorite lechon, is it right? To the lechon lovers, it is. They’re only pigs, we say. We reason that pigs are raised purposely to become our food. But from the point of view of the pig, it certainly is not fair. What moral right does man have for allaying his hunger at the expense of the life of his fellow creatures?

The truth is that there’s no ultimate or universal answer to these questions. No absolute standard of fairness has yet been established, and never will be, for sure. In fact, the idea of fairness is simply a matter of perceptual interpretation, an abstraction, a personal ideal. The social moral codes of the world are merely an attempt to promote peaceful co-existence among members of the human community. Laws make people act in a manner that takes into account the feelings and interests of others.

Everyone of us strives to attain a certain degree of fairness in our personal and social lives. Fairness is as much the stuff of our religious beliefs as of our social principles. Yet no one can impose his own moral ideals on others. The general rule is to go about one’s business in such a way that one does not cause any harm or discomfort to another. An act is presumed fair, until a complaint is raised against it.

We often feel aggrieved by the unfairness of others, even if the offense is very slight or is not directed towards us. A pushy teenager might cut in the line at the movie-ticket booth while others patiently wait for their turn. A swindler may sell a sparkling piece of jewelry that turns out to be a fake. A trusted business partner may screw us out of a profitable deal. And loved ones may show us less affection or loyalty that we expect from them.

When we sense that others are being unfair to us, we get hurt or angry. When we have the law on our side, we go to court if need be. If not, we either sulk or set out to retaliate. Our indignation springs from our interpretation of others’ actions, based on our personal moral concepts or the social codes on the matter. To a very large extent, our grievance is the result of the meaning we give to others’ actions, and not really about the protested actions itself.

The tight handshake of a former classmate whom we’ve not seen in a very long time can mean many different things, depending on the guy’s standing with us. We might be silently telling ourselves, "It’s heartwarming how he tried to recompense for all those long years by holding my hand so tightly." Or we might be saying in our mind, "Damn! He must be mad at me or something, trying to crush my hand!"

Indeed, there’s plenty of real unfairness and impropriety going on in the world. Many things can be viewed as bad and wrong, and it’s easy to feel violated amid all the crap we have to put up with each day. Confronted with a grave blunder, exploding is often the only way we can think of to express our frustration. But will our anger make things right? Is it a fair and proper response? Oftentimes, it can only make matters worse.

Unless we are very sure that it is justifiable, outrage can be a two-edged sword. The consequences of an impulsive outburst will usually defeat us in the long term. Even if we’re genuinely wronged, it may not be to our advantage to just give in to our fury. The pain and suffering we inflict on ourselves by feeling angry may far exceed the damage caused by the original offense.

A friend of mine who runs a design studio in Manila used to be a terror in the workplace. He recalled how he would easily explode when things were not done right even if he had given detailed instructions beforehand. One time he went into a fit of anger over a lousy work by his staff, and unintentionally spilled hot coffee over a newly acquired office equipment.

Shortly afterwards he realized he had acted very badly, and had to spend the next several days trying to convince himself that his awful behavior was warranted. The office machine cost quite a sum to repair and the staff artist had to go on a paid sick leave to heal a scalded foot from the coffee splash. The rest of his employees would not get near their boss for weeks, undermining camaraderie at work which was very necessary in his kind of business.

It was, indeed, unfair to be shortchanged by people you trust. Precisely why my friend reacted the way he did. It was a design job for presentation to a very valuable client, something everyone at the studio had been working on for weeks. He was at the office everyday during that period, and the design artists could have easily checked with him for clarifications. Obviously, they did not. And they lost the account.

But instead of condemning his staff forever, my friend saw the incident as an opportunity to find out what was wrong in his organization. He realized that he’d been seeing the office operations in a completely one-sided way. He did not know the exact distribution of work among his staff. The crucial projects that came every now and then he would just hand directly to the one artist who always did a good job. He never asked what other jobs the guy was on.

This happened at a time when his business was just starting out. He couldn’t afford experienced people then, so his employees were mainly fresh graduates. In a manner of speaking, he could only feed bananas and so he could just settle for monkeys. This he overlooked, making him expect so much from his raw recruits. Moreover, although he’s really a warm person, his strong personality was intimidating to his people.

The situation was unfair, both for him and his staff. Good thing, my friend was man enough to own full responsibility for the poor state of affairs at the office, and initiated various positive changes. Office morale soon rose and his business has since grown at an incredible rate. He has been able to successfully raise top professionals from the lowly monkeys and can now afford to pay his people well. At present, they do packaging designs for some of the biggest product brands in Asia.

Being let down by his staff and losing a big client was, no doubt, unfair to my friend. But he didn’t harbor resentment against his people. As business owner, he gets the biggest share of the proceeds of the design studio. Unfair to his hardworking staff who gets just a little more than their fixed salaries. But they never complain, either.

We do not always get our fair share in life. And we have to live with that. We work so hard and get only too little for our efforts. Our wishes and desires are not gratified at all times, our expectations not always met. We try to be nice to people and they don’t even show appreciation for our act. At one time or another, we get accused of an offense we don’t do or subjected to cruelty we don’t deserve.

Life isn’t fair. But we can try to be. It is one of our greatest tests in this life to do the exact opposite of what we abhor. What does the Bible say we are to do to those who throw stones at us? "Throw bread back at them." Not fair, very hard to follow—but worth trying if we are to prove that, indeed, we are the most supreme of all life forms on this planet.

E-mail: [email protected]