Why The World Isn’t Fair

What is the incentive to do good?

Taken by the author; Ishigaki, Japan

“The world is so unfair!” said my friend. Her colleague just got promoted after doing nothing. This colleague, she said, is extremely incompetent, lazy, always taking others’ credits, a suck-up, mean, unreasonable, two-face, a bully and the list goes on.

This example, is just one of the very minor unfair events that happen around us everyday. On a macro level, the world is unfair in many catastrophic ways. An idiot became a president. A CEO makes 1000 times a janitor makes. A kind-hearted couple separated because of an accident. A beautiful baby got an uncommon disease. The top 1 % living luxurious life at the expense of 99% of people on Earth.

Why is the world so unfair?

Yuval Noah Harari, Israeli historian and philosopher, explained that “fairness” isn’t natural law.

There is never guarantee of fairness. The world order, is always natural selection, the fittest survive. Fittest doesn’t mean good or kind or compassionate. Fittest doesn’t mean competent, smart or hard working. Fittest could be manifested as sly, greedy, calculating, immoral and lucky. As long as they get ahead, no matter the means, they are the fittest.

Harari said fairness is just a story we tell ourselves. We want to believe there is a God that does right. We want to believe that good people will go to heaven. He argues, religion is just another story.

Then what is the incentive to do good?

I think we can do good without expecting good to return. I believe that we should do things for the sake of doing things. Do things you enjoy because of the nature of the things, not the consequence of the things.

Two years ago, my friend Judy was told she only has two years to live because of a rare illness. Before she discovered her illness, she worked as a nurse and always thought she enjoyed helping others. But when she found out about her deadly illness, she quit her job and became a full-time painter. She would sometimes get commissioned to paint, but that doesn’t happen often. She paints because she loves to paint, regardless the money from the sale.

There is no story in her action. She likes what she does because she likes what she is doing. It is not because she wants to help others, not because she wants to progress in her career, not because she wants to make the world a better place. It was the nothingness in her desire that set her truly free.

Two years later today, thanks to modern medicine, she is still living her best (albeit sometimes tiring) life. She lives everyday as if it’s her last day on Earth. She doesn’t talk about her illness, her fate or how unfair the world is.

In fact, she doesn’t talk much about herself, action is louder than words, she is living her best life, because how you spend your day is how you live your life.

Forget about fairness, forget about expectation. Live a story free life.

Approved and published by A Shayens Abran (Founder & Editor of Be Open — Writers & Readers Pub)

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