Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The lie of "life's not fair."

"Life's not fair." What a ridiculous disrespectful lie. First, people who condescendingly tell others that life is unfair believe the person they are telling it to is an idiot for ignoring some obvious truth. But they don't realize how illogical it is to say "life's not fair."

The phrase "life's not fair" implies that life for everyone is unfair. Life is unfair to everyone? Am I the only person to see the contradiction here?

The word "life" here is all inclusive. In this sentence and in meaning it says "life for everyone." If the word "life" didn't mean "everyone," then you wouldn't be telling the person that life is unfair. They already addressed the inequality of life when they said, "it's not fair."

So you are really saying "life for everyone is not fair." But life can NOT be unfair to everyone! If it is unfair to everyone, then it can not by definition be unfair. Unfair means there is an imbalance. Life cannot be unfair to everyone. If it was, there would be no imbalance.

If life is unfair to some, then it must by definition be advantageous to others. We all know that some people are charmed. Life gives them success with little effort. They find money easily. They make friends easily. They look good without working out. They are exceptionally talented. They find love quickly. They attribute their success to hard work, and they no doubt have worked hard. But they fail to recognize the hard work that the guy who mows their lawn and cleans their pool has had to endure for the entirety of his life. These charmed people are the people that say "life's not fair." They don't even realize that life is more than fair to them.

So the phrase "life's not fair" is incomplete. It should either be "life's equally unfair to everyone" (a very clear contradiction) or it should be be "life's not fair to some." It has to be unfair to some. And it's completely meaningless to tell someone that. When someone says "It's not fair" that's exactly what they are saying.

You are better off just agreeing with them.

Next time you tell someone that life is unfair, consider how the contradiction makes you look. It is not true.