JillUser JillUser

Life isn't Fair

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Life isn't Fair

How do you get used to that?

from JoeUser Forums

The death of Dana Reeve really touched me deeply.  That family suffered such hardship, such tragedy.  Their young son has learned the 'life isn't fair' lesson in a very brutle way.  How can such wonderful people suffer such tragedy when so many horrible people sail blissfully through life?

This is a question I simply can't get passed.  I have seen it day in and day out during my 35yrs of life.  Life can be so unfair.  It just doesn't make sense.

I have had an extremely fortunate life.  I have been blessed in so many ways.  I have suffered very little loss so far.  That worries me.  It causes me to feel like the other shoe will drop at any time.  I'm a worry wart and can't help it.

Everything happens for a reason just doesn't cut it for me in cases like Dana Reeve.  Also, I was reading about a local benefit that will take place to raise money for a poor baby girl of only 2yrs old who has cancerous growths on her brain stem and spinal cord.  Why does she have to suffer like that?

It just makes no sense.

**This is in the philosophy section.  Please do not comment with scripture quotation.  I don't mind you crediting or blaming God for such things, just don't get preachy.

philosophy
22,843 views 49 replies
Reply #26 from JoeUser Forums Top
A reason that is uncomprehendable to us. Yes, I would believe that, rather than just randomness.


I wouldn't. I'd rather go with a 'shit happens' theory than believe that some divine being has a plan for his creations that involves the most innocent members of society experiencing nothing but misery in their short lives.

If that's the nature of the god you worship then I want no part of it.
Reply #27 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm with Dharma. I understand a natural balance of good and bad in life. How would you appreciate the good if you never had anything bad happen, right. But explaining a child who knows nothing but pain and misery for the couple of years they are allowed to survive as 'natural' doesn't fly with me in the least.

I've heard your theory on 'bad' before Baker. I think where it doesn't work for me is the part that depends on trusting that we have a loving, perfect God. I can see how your philosophy would work under that condition though. Thanks for the thoughtful and not preachy comment.
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Reply #28 from JoeUser Forums Top
I just had some thoughts...getting into this without getting preachy would be hard for me so I'll just give you a few thoughts that come to mind as I think on this. No preaching.

God sees our heartaches and takes seriously our loss.

Every life is a complete life no matter how long it was

God has a plan going on and a purpose that we cannot understand

God may be protecting us (them) from something worse in life (I'm thinking of your young child that knows only pain here)

We are part of a fallen human race

None of us are immune to tragedy

Tragedy can serve as a wake up call "pain is God's megaphone to a deaf world." C.S.Lewis

We can still believe and have hope even in the midst of tragedy
Reply #29 from JoeUser Forums Top
Have you ever heard the story of Fanny Crosby? She lived in the 1800's. It's a very inspirational story. She was blinded at six weeks by a man who treated her for an eye infection and instead burned her leaving ugly white scars on both eyes.

Seven months later her father died leaving her 21 year old mother and she only 8 months old in poverty.

When Fanny was eight she wrote this:

Oh what a happy child I am, Although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world, Contented I will be!
How many blessings I enjoy that other people don't!
To weep or sigh because I'm blind, I cannot-nor I won't!

She went on to write over 9,000 songs and poems with about a third of them published. Pick up any hymn book and you'll see her songs in there.

She turned tragedy into triumph. And she gave glory to God. I've seen first hand and heard stories like this repeatedly. Life isn't really about what happens to us as much as it is what we do with what we're dealt.

The question shouldn't be "Will I die?" or "When will I die?" or "How will I die?" The question really should be....."When I die, where will I go?"
Reply #30 from JoeUser Forums Top
"I've heard your theory on 'bad' before Baker. I think where it doesn't work for me is the part that depends on trusting that we have a loving, perfect God."


Even people who are 80 still dread death, and when they are told they have cancer they still feel something bad is happening to them and that is isn't fair. There really isn't any such thing as dying of old age, you always die of something, something always fails. Imagine what the world would be like if the only people who died were the ones ready and accepting of it.

Would it be fair when God sterilized all those young couples because the natural balance was destroyed and people were being born ten times faster than they were dying? I suppose God could have given us unlimited space and resources, but that is starting to look like a world that would turn out spoiled, ungrateful brats, not people of merit.

The alternative to all this kind of 'bad' would be people sitting here upset because they have to live their long, wonderful life with no children while other people have them. One or the other has to go.

The reason we can have kids like the one mentioned in the article is because 'bad' things happen to make room for them. Otherwise no one would want to bring a child into what this world would be. In that light, by condemning the 'bad' you are condemning the process that allows for 'good'.
Reply #31 from JoeUser Forums Top
KFC and Baker, no offense but nothing either of you said addresses the baby who is born and knows nothing but pain and misery for a couple of years before dying. Nothing anyone could say about God and the natural balance of things will ever explain that.

Baker, I know plenty of elderly people who are absolutely fine with death. Heck, I know plenty of people who at least got to see their children through to adulthood who feel like if they died tomorrow they will feel as though they lived a full life. I simply can't believe that a loving God who has some great plan would kill off a bus full of Middle school honor students to make way for hundreds of poor children to be born into poverty, abuse, violence, hunger, disease, etc.

I am not condemning death Baker. I am condemning ridiculous amounts of suffering.

The question shouldn't be "Will I die?" or "When will I die?" or "How will I die?" The question really should be....."When I die, where will I go?"


KFC, I don't think anyone asks the first question and if you have never asked all of those other questions at some time I think you are either lying or not very bright (sounds harsh but I think that was a pretty simplisitc, unrealistic statement). After all, has there ever been a human who doesn't wonder what happens when you die? If you are a parent, how could you not ask to live long enough to raise your children?

I don't fear being dead but I do fear dying an agonizing death and putting my family through undue pain. I fear not being here for my children until they are able to stand on their own. It breaks my heart to think about Chris and Dana's 13yr old son. Being a teen is hard enough under ideal circumstances. He lost the two people who meant the most to him in this world within a very short period of his emerging life. I can't help but feel that if anyone doesn't see that as unfair they must be either unempathetic or cold hearted.
Reply #32 from JoeUser Forums Top
"I am not condemning death Baker. I am condemning ridiculous amounts of suffering."


Why condemn it at all? I think the expectation of something other than suffering and death is what makes us so bitter. What makes people any different than any other creature on earth? Babies animals die, baby people die. Pain and misery are the body's reaction to something. Sometimes I think our expectations are like allergies; extreme reactions to a normal environment that we'd be better off without.

'Unfair' to me is something unusual. As awful as it seems to us, there's nothing unusual about pain, misery, and death. If anything would be unusual it would be getting through life without it. We are like bugs floating on a leaf in the middle of a river. Had we been born in on another continent we might be getting shot at, or dying of hunger, or being tortured to death for our beliefs.

So, frankly, if there is anything unusual it is living in the extreme comfort and safety that we have come to expect. The problem is we have come to expect it so much, nature is unusual to us. Studying history has given me a different point of view, I guess. Our comfort and safety are now so unrealistically 'fair', I can't even imagine this will last, much less get even better.
Reply #33 from JoeUser Forums Top
Baker, are you saying if your child was born, you soon found out he/she had spinal cancer, you would just say "Hey, that's natural"? Hatred it is natural, violence is natural, pain is natural. And are you saying that what happened to the Reeve family is a "usual" occurence? I will have to agree to fervently disagree with you on this subject Baker.
Reply #34 from JoeUser Forums Top
Baker, are you saying if your child was born, you soon found out he/she had spinal cancer, you would just say "Hey, that's natural"? Hatred it is natural, violence is natural, pain is natural. And are you saying that what happened to the Reeve family is a "usual" occurence? I will have to agree to fervently disagree with you on this subject Baker.
Reply #35 from JoeUser Forums Top
Baker, are you saying if your child was born, you soon found out he/she had spinal cancer, you would just say "Hey, that's natural"?

Hatred is natural, violence is natural, pain is natural. If these things aren't "bad", then I don't know what is. And are you saying that what happened to the Reeve family is a "usual" occurence?

I will have to agree to fervently disagree with you on this subject Baker.

Babies animals die, baby people die.
Yeah, and adult animals kill and sometimes eat their babies, should I expect that for people too? I don't see the logic in this statement.
Reply #36 from JoeUser Forums Top
BTW, those first two comments were the results of timeouts and then errors that wouldn't let me edit them.
Reply #37 from JoeUser Forums Top
JillUser,

I think it all can be summed up in the phrase "Shit happens."

Not exactly a politically correct answer, but that's what it looks like from here.

I see a balance existing between good, bad, and indifferent results (notice, not intentions, but results) in what goes on in our lives. This doesn't mean that when a bad thing (new husband paralyzed, for example) happens in a Person A's life that something good (winning the lottery, say) will happen in Person A's life. That good thing might happen in Person B's life (or even Person AABCABAA's life somewhere on the other side of the planet). But, that good thing WILL happen.

A good example of this - 11 years ago this month, I lost my grandfather due to cancer. He'd been dealing with it for years. A month (and change) later, my oldest son was born. Bad -> Good -> Balance.

I lost my grandmother in October. In this case, the same event provided the Balance - our loss was bad, but the fact that she no longer suffered, and had lived a good/full life, balanced each other out.
Reply #38 from JoeUser Forums Top
Looking at that ... It's something that I can see, and understand. When it becomes personal, or the bad things happen to the same individual, then it becomes harder to accept and rationalize.

Unfortunately, there are too many things that I've experienced that are hard to rationalize. Too many encounters with experiences outside the realm of science and corporeal reality. Accepting some of them is a little difficult, as well.
Reply #39 from JoeUser Forums Top
I hear ya Chaos. "Shit happens" indeed.
Reply #40 from JoeUser Forums Top
" Baker, are you saying if your child was born, you soon found out he/she had spinal cancer, you would just say "Hey, that's natural"? "


No, I'd be destroyed. We have a strong instict for survival and procreation. I couldn't claim it wasn't natural, though, nor can you. 6 in every thousand babies die in the US, it's well over 100 out of a thousand in some parts of the world.

Babies with cancer rarely make the news. If no babies died, that would be unnatural.

"Hatred is natural, violence is natural, pain is natural. If these things aren't "bad", then I don't know what is."


I live with a chronic illness and my own share of pain. Is my life 'bad'? Is it worse than someone without the illness? This illness makes me who I am. If this illness is 'bad', then I am the product of 'badness'.

Eventually unless a cure is found my guts will continue rotting away and I'll walk around with a sack on my hip, and even further down the road I'll just run out of them altogether and die. Would I prefer to live to a ripe old age? Sure. Do I consider it 'bad' if I don't? Not really.

"Yeah, and adult animals kill and sometimes eat their babies, should I expect that for people too? I don't see the logic in this statement."


You expect the absence of pain and suffering, therefore when it comes it is unfair. Pain and suffering and death are so common, though, that the state we live in as US citizens is unfair in our ABSENCE of horrors. The Reeves son will have a life far better than 99.99999% of the people who ever walked the earth. Fair is relative.

I see nothing, nowhere, that gives me the impression I should expect anything more than what you consider 'bad'. You find it more logical to expect the world to be something other than it is?
Reply #41 from JoeUser Forums Top
Fair is relative.


Absolutely.

You find it more logical to expect the world to be something other than it is?


No, logic has nothing to do with that expectation. Do I think it would be more fair if it were somthing different? Yes.

Baker, I am truly sorry for the disease you have to deal with. I am happy for you that you seem to have come to terms and have such an acceptance of the way things are. I don't and nothing you have said has gotten me any closer. To accept things as simply fair and natural isn't in me. But then again, I am not religious like you so perhaps religion and that sort of acceptance depend upon each other.

I do appreciate your comments. Just because they didn't change my overall outlook doesn't mean I didn't take anything away from them.
Reply #42 from JoeUser Forums Top
Jill

From a Christian perspective when I see stuff happen I don't blame God for these things. Yes, he allows things to happen but I do believe there is a plan going on that only he knows. We live in a sinful world and because of that, bad things happen to us. From a deist perspective you should not blame God either right? You believe he created the world and let us be. You can't have it both ways.

Why do little babies suffer and die? I don't think any of us have a real answer here. But I do know that when Lazarus died (too young) and he was asked Jesus said it was for the glory of God. When he cured the blind man, he gave the same reply when asked why this man was blind from birth. For God's glory. I think of Fanny Crosby also. For the glory of God.

My hunch is there is more to the story than what you and I see from the headlines.

I also believe that everything that happens shapes us into who we are today. While I don't like going through trials or painful experiences they do make me the person I am now and I wouldn't trade that for anything. For me when I go through anything it brings me closer to God not away from him.

I have a hunch that God has a great plan for that 13 year old boy. If you go back thru history and read some of the giants in those times, almost all went through very trying times. Beauty out of ashes.

I also believe there are worst things than physical death.
Reply #43 from JoeUser Forums Top
Fair is relative.


When people say to me that God is unfair. I say they are right. He is unfair. After Adam and Eve did their little rebellious thing in the garden following the enemy of God and after all the adultery of his people to other gods throughout history, I think if I were him I'd have wiped them all out.

Instead what does he do? Dies for us because he loves us and desires to have us love Him in return. He died so that we might live.

God doesn't give us what we deserve. Therefore, he is not fair. Not at all.
Reply #44 from JoeUser Forums Top
"When he cured the blind man, he gave the same reply when asked why this man was blind from birth."


That explains the ones that were healed, but doesn't quite address all the rest. I find it difficult to believe that any perfect being would inflict suffering on another creature to enhance its glory. If a person were to do it they'd be a monster, and I grant God a lot more perfection than I grant people.
Reply #45 from JoeUser Forums Top
From a deist perspective you should not blame God either right?


When did I ever say I blamed God? Saying that something isn't fair or that shit happens for no good reason has absolutely nothing to do with God. Also, deists believe there is a God but don't know. I don't believe in the God that you believe in. I believe we don't have a God that is watching over every little thing. I don't believe he has a hand in all that happens. I think we are basically like a software program. We were created and set in motion. Bugs/problems occur not because got 'wanted' them too but they are just how our program plays out.

My hunch is there is more to the story than what you and I see from the headlines.


What more would you need to know to have it seem any more fair? Dana wasn't even a smoker!

I also believe there are worst things than physical death.


You have every right to believe that. Like I said, I am not afraid of death. My problem is with unnecessary suffering. But again, KFC, please leave the Bible out of your comments here. You are well aware of how I feel about that. Just because you aren't directly quoting from the bible doesn't mean you aren't preaching christianity and I directly requested you not do that...again.

Baker, good point.
Reply #46 from JoeUser Forums Top
Interesting discussion of the ones I read (about the first 20).

But your title says it all. Life is not fair. It is a roll of the dice on a craps table. Some win, some lose, but at the end, the house (death) wins every game. The only question is how we live the unknown we have, and what we do with it. Some will have 100 years, like Bob Hope. SOme will have but 7 or 8 like Amanda the Lemonade Gal.

It is the dash that matters, not the dates.
Reply #47 from JoeUser Forums Top
Baker, are you saying if your child was born, you soon found out he/she had spinal cancer, you would just say "Hey, that's natural"? Hatred it is natural, violence is natural, pain is natural. And are you saying that what happened to the Reeve family is a "usual" occurence? I will have to agree to fervently disagree with you on this subject Baker.


Ok, I read more. But let me answer (I have not read farther than this one). Of course you would rail and rant and rave! But in the end, you could let the hate and bitterness consume you, or realize that what your title says is true. I have a DS Nephew, and lost a nephew at the age of 2. Did my sisters (different ones) DESERVE either of those?

My DS nephew has given my family and my sister more love and appreciation of life than any 10 others, for that is his life and his lesson to us.

My Nephew (great actually) who died, brought my sister back to my family for she had ostracized herself, but we rallied around her.

Were the sacrafices worth it? Who are we to judge. Perhaps the question should be, did we learn anything from the tragedies?

Life is not fair, but to bemoan the unfairness is to miss the lessons that are a part of life. We cannot stop the unfairness, but we can learn from them.

And that is the real goal in life, right?
Reply #48 from JoeUser Forums Top
My hunch is there is more to the story than what you and I see from the headlines.


What more would you need to know to have it seem any more fair? Dana wasn't even a smoker!


I think what he is alluding to is that perhaps we have not been told the truth about lung cancer. Not that she was a closet smoker.
Reply #49 from JoeUser Forums Top
I guess what I am saying is if 'life isn't fair', maybe the problem is that our definition of 'fair' doesn't jive with reality. Thus, we expect what isn't possible.