I don’t know about you, but I was raised with one great big fallacy hanging over me from cradle pretty much right on through to more than a few years past college. I was taught that life was fair. You got as good as you gave. Honesty was repaid in kind. And hard work always saw genuine results that were of equal reward.

Then, I learned after many an “oops” and a plethora of “oh dears,” that life really isn’t an equal-opportunity equation. But, being a rather hard-headed gal, I did not take this lesson to heart and try to work from the new platform; I simply kept looking for that balanced scale and kept bitching when I could not find it. Then I stopped moaning and started appreciating.

There is no tit for tat that others will agree on. We all come at this doing-of-daily-living adventure from our own viewpoint; and thus we are unique and, of necessity, most often pretty self-interested. This puts a new spin on things; and it makes the game a whole heck of a lot more interesting. Think about it.

That balanced scale I was looking for really doesn’t exist outside of my own game plan. I have to decide, measure for measure, what results I want and what results will keep me playing the game. I bring my own value-added or loss-limit to all things tried and untried in my life.

With beaded brow, I will work at a project until my hands are blistered and my knees are bending, if I think it has value or I find joy in it. Another person may look at the same deal and think the entire thing a crashing bore and absolutely useless. I will sing while I massage sore shoulders, while another person snores and looks for a trash receptacle. No equation equality here, right? But such is life.

With the “fairness” factor taken out of things, there is the reach and the stretch to life; and the “what the hell might happen” if I sling my hopes and dreams to the universe. If things are always equal–energy and hope in are aligned to results and delight out–then life would be a foregone and fore-done affair. Where would be the “holy crap!” and the “isn’t this something” part of living that makes it so very, very much fun; and makes it so really, really exciting?

And, with life being this “it ain’t fair” affair, then the downside must always be part of the entire go-round as well. For, without the “eh!” then we cannot experience the “aha’s!” and the “oh, my God’s!”

Hopefully, there will always be those effort-in and more effort-in times when the outcomes are still so very much in the sway. We have made the decision that these are things we believe in, doings we give worth to. So we continue to continue because, thank God, life isn’t fair; and the payoff may be so much more than we ever even glimpsed or dared hope for.

Tags: aging, life lessons, robin korth

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 at 12:00 pm and is filed under IOA Stories, Newsletter, Robin's Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.