Life is Not Fair, So What.
Somewhere we all got the idea that life is supposed to be fair. Maybe we learned it in school. I know I learned it somewhere and it gave me the excuse when I was young to complain, whine and blame others for where I was or wasn't in life. How can it be fair?
We all start out in different places and different starting points. I started out in the Bronx as the second son of two Irish immigrants. They had a third grade education at best and came to America during the Great Depression to make a better life. My mother worked as a maid and factory worker and my father as a butcher in a meat plant. My dad died when I was four and I grew up living on two check. My mother supported us on my deceased dad's social security check and his VA check for the time he served in the Army. We were poor but how could we be anything else?
That's where we started out and where we were. Yes, there were so many more who were rich and privileged and it wasn't fair. Or so I thought at the time as I came to resent and envy those who were successful. Of course that left me in the same place I was.
Luckily I began to be exposed to ideas about personal responsibility leading to success and I came to recognize that we all had opportunities but we had to find them or make them. We had to be the driving force for making a better life for ourselves and our families just like my parents tried by coming to America.
So life isn't fair, never was and never will be. Yet we can choose to NOT complain, whine, blame and hate others who are successful but instead strive to make a better life for ourselves and our families and contribute to making a better life for others as well. Your choice...
-- John Duffy
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