What is Fair?

I have this thing about fairness.  I was told as a young child that life is not fair.  I believe that.  But I don't like it.  So, I try as hard as I can in my personal actions to be fair to people (I include my dogs in that).

But, what is fair?

Here is Merriam-Wester's simple definition of fair:

• : agreeing with what is thought to be right or acceptable
• : treating people in a way that does not favor some over others
• : not too harsh or critical

So being fair is trying to do the right thing, in a way that does not favor some over others, and is not too harsh or critical.  It doesn't sound hard,  but it feels hard.

I'll give a couple of examples.  Whenever I give one of my dogs a treat, I give them both a treat.  It wouldn't be fair to favor one over the other.  But sometimes, Scarlett drops her treat and Beaux grabs it before I can stop him.  I give Scarlett another treat, not two treats. Then I worry if I was fair.

There are three Christmas cookies left.  I give one to my husband, one to me, and break on in half, to make sure that I am fair.  But then I worry if the halves were even.

Those are the easy examples, and not the fairness questions that keep me up at night.

I have had an amazing life.  I got a very good job at twenty-four that turned into a lucrative and fulfilling career.  I have a beautiful, smart healthy daughter.  I have a wonderful husband who is also my partner and friend.  I made serious mistakes in my youth that have undermined other people's opportunities, but somehow they did not undermine the opportunities that I had.  How is that fair?

I had a friend who did everything right healthwise.  Exercised, watched what he ate and drank, got the recommended amount of sleep every night, died from brain cancer at thirty-nine.  How is that fair?

I know people who work fifty and sixty hour weeks, and yet can't get ahead because their student loan debt is crippling, or because they have medical debt, or extended families to care for.  How is that fair?

Those examples all support the "life is not fair" hypothesis.  So I try in my little ways to be fair.  But it feels inadequate.

So how can our little ways of trying to be fair make the world more fair?

Well, we can support candidates that want a more fair system.

We can promote fairness in our conversations, and in our writings.

We can advance the position that much of success is luck, and much of failure is luck as well.

If we are ever going to see more fairness in the universe, it will be because we stop believing we create our success, and others create their failures.

Yes, we all have the ability to make choices that limit the next set of choices we have available.  But even if a person makes all the best choices available, bad stuff can still happen because life is not fair.

So, instead of trying to convince myself and others of why I deserve what I have, I'm going to work on giving of my bounty.  And not just material giving.

Giving compassion, giving forgiveness, giving understanding, giving opportunity.

Because I can't make the world fair.  But I can acknowledge that it isn't fair that I have been so blessed by good fortune that others haven't been blessed with.  And then I can try to share the blessings that have been bestowed on me instead of hoarding them.