March 4, 2014
On occasions you hear people say “life is not fair.” They say that if life was fair no one would be better off than anyone. However, it really depends on how you look at life. If you can look at life the way you look at a game of poker, then life is not so unfair. In a game of poker, the dealer may give some players a great set of cards or like they say in poker, a great hand. It may also give other players cards that are not so good. However, those that are given a bad hand do not blame the dealer for getting them. They know that it is all by chance. The dealer does not decide the player’s fate in the game. Everyone understands that getting a bad set of cards is part of the game.
Life is the same way. Life does not decide who is going to be poor or rich or healthy or sick. However, for life to have a purpose we need experience good and evil. If you read my post on “A Tribute to Pain, Anguish, and Suffering, you know what I am talking about. Just imagine a life where there is no suffering, no needs, and no diseases. In essence, a life where there is no evil. What would life’s purpose be? We would not need to eat because if we didn’t eat and we experienced hunger that would imply suffering and if life is fair, it would not allow anyone to experience hunger and suffer. We would not need to work because if there is no suffering what would we need to work for? We would not need to learn anything because if there is no pain why would we need to learn anything? The word “need” would not even exist because if it did it would imply that there is room for suffering and a life that is fair is not supposed to allow suffering. If there are no needs what exactly would we do with our lives?
We need a sense of purpose to live. Unfortunately, we cannot have a sense of purpose unless there is evil. This means that there are people to whom life will hand a bad set of cards. Is that unfair? I don’t think that it is a matter of fairness but a matter of chance. The good news is that like in poker even if you are given a bad hand you can still make the best of it and come out a winner. Since life is about chances, it does not matter if you are rich or poor or good or evil. The chances that you may face a tragic death or a horrible disease are the same. On occasions, whether you succeed or fail in life will depend on how you play your hand. Other times it will be pure chance without distinction of your background or socioeconomic status.
Thus, although, when something unfortunate happens to us we may feel that life is “unfair,” the reality is that life has just handed us a bad set of cards and it is really up to us to make the best of it.