Quote:
Originally Posted by DiracSpike
File it under example 103847594029 of life being not fair.
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I, like every from every person from every past generation, have been hearing that "life isn't fair" all my life. It may sound a little silly, but this millennial is just finally getting around to fully understand what that means, and to truly accept that.
I don't know whether to
blame (which I am now using that word ironically) my upbringing, schooling, the kids television programming, or our greater Canadian society as a whole, but thinking back I sort of misunderstood "Life isn't fair" to mean "There will be challenges and adversity to overcome, but all will be right in the end if you work hard, believe in yourself, etc. etc. Bad guys always get their comeuppance and good guys always win in the end". All that hokey ####.
Finally, and with no hint on jadedness or nihilism, I am coming to around to accepting that no, not everything can be made perfectly right. It isn't one perspective on life, it's the facts, and any other view is a delusion. Again, this might sound a little silly to some, but there is a subtlety there that I'm just finally understanding and accepting, a little later in life than some. And that isn't to say we shouldn't stand up for what's right, and fight against injustice. We just have to be sure the fight is truly worth spending some of our short lives on.
I see it as a good thing if the self-improvement doctrine of Jordan Peterson reaches more young people. I'm not sure if anything he says is novel, but he has the platform now, and his "rules" seem to a have positive message and positive influence on a lot of people. Peterson's self-improvement message can be distilled as "life isn't fair, so work hard at making yourself a better person, and if everyone works on themselves this way, life can be a little better for everyone" (again...not exactly novel). There is no perfection or utopia to achieve, just lower levels of suffering. And it's not that this is good or bad, it just is, so we have to accept it. I wish I intuitively understood this when I was younger.