Life Ain’t Fair
My Thanksgiving Tribute to Being
There is a dismal, butt hurt, deeply depressed emotional reaction to life that results in the saying
Life ain’t fair!
These three words can spring from a place of bitterness. Why me? Woe is me. They can come from a place of stoicism. After all, we weren’t promised a rose garden. They can be a sign of depression and despair.
These three words can also come from a place of awareness.
Sometimes the awareness is in the form of a brief AHA moment. It hits us between the eyes with its universal truth, and then disappears to be completely forgotten.
Sometimes, this awareness, however, will change the way we view birth, life, and death. It changes our world view and helps us navigate the pitfalls of life.
I don’t remember exactly when I finally realized that life isn’t fair.
It may have been a gradual awareness, but one day, I suddenly saw things as they are and not as I wanted them to be. That’s when I knew that life isn’t designed with my happiness in mind. Or your happiness for that matter. There isn’t a single living creature on this planet teeming with life that is given protection from the universe.
The universe does not and cannot manifest your desires for you no matter how hard you try to will it to happen.
This planet when viewed without rose-colored glasses is a mass of carnage. Something somewhere is always consuming something else. If we closed our eyes and were allowed to see and hear everything all at once, we’d probably have a seizure. Earth is a slaughterhouse. It is a death camp. Mother Nature isn’t benevolent. Nature is cruel and totally without empathy.
It functions because of this carnage, however.
We’re all dependent upon one another for food and life itself. You may be eaten or be the one doing the eating. The planet thrives at every level because we’re all part of the food chain.
Survival is the theme.
It makes no difference whether we’re talking about a rabbit hiding in its burrow, a fly feeding off a dead carcass, a virus morphing into a more resistant strain, or a human trying to maneuver their way through the grand obstacle course called life. We’re all the same.
At the root of our very beingness is the instinct to survive.
Humans like to think they are special, but that’s a touch of ego mixed with the use of two hands and a big brain convincing us that we’re above the other life forms. We’re not. In the end, we’re all engaged in the same struggle, an instinctual need to reproduce and survive.
So how do we find meaning in a world that makes being alive risky business?
I’m no expert on the topic. I can only share a few things that work for me…
- I’ve made peace with birth, life, and death for starters.
- I live my life seeking experiences rather than things. Material things tie me down. I want a taste of lots of different experiences from food to languages, to natural beauty, to world travels, to books, to cultures, to sunsets and sunrises.
- I try to live in the moment as much as possible.
- I don’t dwell on the dim chance of an afterlife. Rather, I see this life as THE opportunity.
- I try to remember that I’m not the center of the universe
- Gratitude is central to my daily practices
It’s not easy being alive. People who say otherwise are merely pretending. I think humans tend to make far too much out of this journey, however. We don’t know where we were before we arrived nor where we’ll be when we’re gone. All we have is now. If you miss now, you’re missing life.
Happy belated Thanksgiving!
Teresa is an author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
