When I was a kid, I used to be a fanatic about justice and fairness. Now I see the same passion from my nephew and niece. "It is not FAIR"...they would say. Especially when things were clearly not right. I now believe that if most people do not experience unfair circumstances, they grow up believing that life is inherently fair.
Around the time of the US elections last year, my 7 year of nephew was very curious about the position of the president. He asked a thousand questions about the role of a president. And at some point, my sister showed him a picture of all the 45 presidents of the US. He looked at the pictures and his first comment was - "What is wrong with women?" In the eyes of a child, both men and women have equal rights and access to any position out there so he expected to see close to equal number of men and women. It is fascinating to see how young/unbiased people look at a biased situation.
The reality that I am learning to understand and accept is that life isn't fair. It may be getting better than it was before - but it is definitely not fair. Most of the things that have disappointed and surprised me are the ones where I expected life to be fair and for Karma to behave like a competent angel.
I come back to the TED talk about the paradox of choice by Barry Shwartz. He says in the talk that the key to happiness is low expectations. How many of us would be happier if we didn't make the assumption that life was fair?
Around the time of the US elections last year, my 7 year of nephew was very curious about the position of the president. He asked a thousand questions about the role of a president. And at some point, my sister showed him a picture of all the 45 presidents of the US. He looked at the pictures and his first comment was - "What is wrong with women?" In the eyes of a child, both men and women have equal rights and access to any position out there so he expected to see close to equal number of men and women. It is fascinating to see how young/unbiased people look at a biased situation.
The reality that I am learning to understand and accept is that life isn't fair. It may be getting better than it was before - but it is definitely not fair. Most of the things that have disappointed and surprised me are the ones where I expected life to be fair and for Karma to behave like a competent angel.
I come back to the TED talk about the paradox of choice by Barry Shwartz. He says in the talk that the key to happiness is low expectations. How many of us would be happier if we didn't make the assumption that life was fair?
