Justice

We all look for fairness or justice in life, but recently when I read ‘Tipping Sacred Cows’, it made me realize how this need for justice sometimes looks like. The author tells a story about a time when he tells one of his daughters that he’ll have to miss her birthday, as he needs to travel for work. The daughter obviously feels bad. When he asks her how he can make up for it, she asks him to miss his other daughter’s birthday.

While my daughter too looks for fairness, I’ve not seen her take joy in someone suffering. If my wife kisses her goodbye, but then accidentally kisses me goodbye twice, then she wants that second kiss. If we spend a lot of time in front of our screens, then she wants more screen time. Come to think of it, ‘that’s not fair’, is almost a catchphrase for her.

I want to tell her obviously that life isn’t fair, but I’d like to break it gently to her. However, I don’t think I can expect her to stop looking for it. Maybe she can stop expecting it, and not be taken by surprise, or worse be disgusted or depressed because life is not always fair. I’m sure she’ll look for it, and hope for it. We all do.

For me, the more important lesson I would like to teach her is that in her search for fairness, she should never hope for bad things to happen to other people. We’re humans, not crabs.