THE DISRTORTED IDEA OF FAIRNESS

We’ve all heard people say that life isn’t fair, and most people believe that life should be fair. These people struggle with the reality of life that things don’t always work out the way that we’d like them to. People will not always meet our expectations, and that's okay. 

Let’s be completely honest here. The entirety of the word fairness can almost always not be neutral. People think situations are only fair when it goes their way. It’s only termed unfair when it doesn’t. We as humans can be pretty damn self absorbed, and placing us in the position of deciding what's fair can be a dicey one.

Let’s say your manager tells you if you're late one more time you're fired. You get into an accident on the highway and can’t make it into work and your manager fires you. You think it’s not fair because the accident was something totally out of your control and your job should be more understanding of your circumstances. But let’s face it, if you hadn’t been coming in so late prior to this accident to the point that your job had to give you an ultimatum, you’d still be employed. And that is what you call a distorted idea of fairness! 

The truth is that two people will rarely agree on what the meaning of “fair” is in personal interactions. We always think it is unfair when something goes another person’s way and not ours. Fairness is subjective, not objective. How we perceive fairness is how we view reality, and all our perceptions are inaccurate to some extent, so a person cannot perceive objective fairness. When life does not go with our perception of what we think fairness should be, negative emotions such as hurt, anger, and fear rises.

Here’s another example, Jared and Janet are newly wedded. Janet expects Jared to work at his job and assist with the domestic chores because she experienced that growing up, as both her dad and mom worked and did domestic chores. Jared, on the other hand, saw only one of his parents work and the other manage things around the house. Janet is frustrated by her husband’s perceived indifference to what she sees as mutual responsibility, and Jared is baffled by her behaviour and cannot understand why he should work all day and then work more at home, even though his wife also works a full-time job.

Both husband and wife think that they are being treated unfairly, but it is neither fair nor unfair. Household chores must be done, and both of them must work to earn money. Both husband and wife perceive the other’s actions and behaviours as being unfair due to their past experiences, so in this case, it’s subjective.

When things don’t work out the way we expect or people don’t act how we expect them to, the blame game comes in. We need to realize that fairness is not absolute. Our perception of fairness is based on our experiences, which may not apply to anyone else. Being Fair is relative. Hence there really is a distorted idea of fairness.