Possibly one of the best articles for snowflakes everywhere that I’ve ever seen.
The problem isn’t that life is unfair – it’s your broken idea of fairness
Unless you’re winning, most of life will seem hideously unfair to you.
The real rules are there. They actually make sense. But they’re a bit more complicated, and a lot less comfortable, which is why most people never manage to learn them.
Rule #1: Life is a competition
But never fall for the collective delusion that there’s not a competition going on. People dress up to win partners. They interview to win jobs. If you deny that competition exists, you’re just losing. Everything in demand is on a competitive scale. And the best is only available to those who are willing to truly fight for it.
Rule #2. You’re judged by what you do, not what you think
Society judges people by what they can do for others. Can you save children from a burning house, or remove a tumour, or make a room of strangers laugh? You’ve got value right there.That’s not how we judge ourselves though. We judge ourselves by our thoughts.
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But in reality, social reward is just a network effect. Reward comes down mostly to the number of people you impact:
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You may hate this. It may make you sick. Reality doesn’t care. You’re judged by what you have the ability to do, and the volume of people you can impact. If you don’t accept this, then the judgement of the world will seem very unfair indeed.
Rule #3. Our idea of fairness is self interest
The problem isn’t that life is unfair; it’s your broken idea of fairness.
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Similarly we love to hate our bosses and parents and politicians. Their judgements are unfair. And stupid. Because they don’t agree with me! And they should! Because I am unquestionably the greatest authority on everything ever in the whole world!It’s true there are some truly awful authority figures. But they’re not all evil, self-serving monsters trying to line their own pockets and savour your misery. Most are just trying to do their best, under different circumstances to your own.
Maybe they know things you don’t – like, say, your company will go bust if they don’t do something unpopular. Maybe they have different priorities to you – like, say, long term growth over short term happiness.
But however they make you feel, the actions of others are not some cosmic judgement on your being. They’re just a byproduct of being alive.
Why life isn’t fair
Can you imagine how insane life would be if it actually was ‘fair’ to everyone? No-one could fancy anyone who wasn’t the love of their life, for fear of breaking a heart. Companies would only fail if everyone who worked for them was evil. Relationships would only end when both partners died simultaneously. Raindrops would only fall on bad people.Most of us get so hung up on how we think the world should work that we can’t see how it does. But facing that reality might just be the key to unlocking your understanding of the world, and with it, all of your potential.