Complain or not to complain? That is the question. Life is not fair. Is there anything positive about life not being fair? If so, what is it? What you always wanted to know or, did you? about "life is not fair but was afraid to ask.

Life is not fair. What does that really mean? What does it mean when you say or hear someone else say life is not fair? Generally speaking, people agree that life is not fair. But what people mean when they say life is not fair is not what that value judgment means contextually or constructionally, but rather what it means traditionally and apologetically.

For most people, life is not fair infers that they are others who have been treated unfairly have been short changed, undercut, underpaid or denied some good. Seldom when people say life is not fair do they mean that they are other people have been overpaid, lucky or favored. Yet the latter, not the former, is more often true .

Think for a moment about life is not fair with regard to your own life in the usual context or, preferably, in a different construct. You will likely become aware that you have reaped where you have not sown and been the beneficiary of grace that at times serendipitously bequeathed to you significant gifts. To take inventory or make a reality check do the following make two lists: label one list "Life is not fair - Shortchanged," label the other list "Life is not fair - Overpaid." Put these two lists side-by-side and you will discover that your "life is not fair - overpaid list" is much longer than your "life is not fair - short-changed list," that you have been favored more than you have been disfavored.

So, the next time you say or hear someone else say, life is not fair, take comfort in and express gratitude for the fact that life is not fair. Imagine what your life would be like if life was fair. Where would you be now? When life is not fair grace abounds all the more.As Shakespeare observed, "Sweet are the uses of adversity," that results from life not being fair.

A word of caution and challenge: do not use the much heard, oftentimes, pity-patty, statement that life is not fair to justify your failure to support and actively work for fairness and justice. Never cease to do your part, as far as it is possible for you to do so, to make life fair and just and not just for yourself, but others, as well. And remember, that even when our efforts seem ineffective or unsuccessful that, like truth, even though crushed to earth rises again, they too will sway the future, if not in time, certainly, in eternity.

Copyright 2007 by Uriah J. Fields