As I walked into the house, I could hear my kids arguing. “That’s not fair!” one yelled. I wasn’t even sure what the argument was about, but I stopped them and sat them down.
“Life isn’t fair,” I told them. “Who gave you the idea that it is? It never has been, and it never will be.”
They’re 10, 8, and 5 years old, probably too young for this kind of talk, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. Somewhere in the middle of my soapbox speech, I realized this was really an article, not a conversation meant for little kids. But it was too late; I was already deep in it.
I told them that hard work, dedication, and commitment are usually rewarded, but not always. Sometimes people stumble into success without those things. Some are born into families with money or connections. Others have to grind for every inch. Life is not, and has never been, an even playing field.
But where did we get the idea that it should be? And when did we start asking the government to make it fair?
The truth is, it’s not possible. Fairness can’t be mandated, legislated, or regulated into existence. We all have different bodies, different parents, different traumas, and different gifts.
When I was young, I wished I were skinnier so I could keep figure skating after puberty. I wished I were taller so I could play basketball. But wishing didn’t change reality.
I could identify as a basketball player or a figure skater, but that wouldn’t make it so. It felt unfair. I didn’t have a figure skater’s body. I didn’t have a basketball player’s body. I didn’t have a body like the girls on magazine covers.
But that’s just what it was. I had to learn to live in the truth of my own body, to discover its strengths rather than resent its limits. That lesson has echoed throughout my life: We can’t bend reality to match our desires, but we can meet reality with humility, effort, and purpose.
The Myth of Fairness
It’s not the government’s job to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s the government’s job to create the container where we can each search for them. Only we can do that.The conversation about equity, the obsession with fairness, and the culture of participation trophies are making us softer. When we remove the sting of losing or the frustration of not being the best, we remove the very fuel that drives human growth.
Feeling the sting of “not being enough” in a given moment is what pushes us to improve. Looking at what someone else has and asking, “How can I get there?”—that’s ambition. That’s human nature.
We are all built differently: different IQs, different metabolic health, different temperaments, different family circumstances. Some of those things we can control; many we cannot. But none of them can be equalized by policy.
There’s no such thing as fairness. There’s no such thing as equity.
You cannot legislate outcome, only opportunity. Opportunities should be equally available to anyone willing to work for them. But the outcome will always vary, because human beings will always vary.
My husband was one of eight children, born in a cement shack in Mexico. Today, he owns a 200-acre ranch in Texas. What are the odds of that? One in a million, maybe. Is it “fair” that his siblings don’t have the same life? Of course not. But that’s not the point. The miracle is that he could. That in this world, and especially in this country, someone born into poverty can still build a life beyond imagination.
And maybe my husband thinks it’s unfair that he has to work so hard to keep all that we have, while his siblings can get off work at four o’clock, lie down in a hammock, and drink a cold beer every day of the week. At four o’clock, he still has many hours of work to do.
Fairness is perception.
He sometimes dreams of moving back to Mexico to live a simpler life with fewer responsibilities. Meanwhile, his siblings look at his life and think he has it easy, with the tractors, the tools, and the land.
So whose perception is correct? Whose life is better? Who got the better end of the deal?
Maybe fairness isn’t something to chase at all. Maybe it’s just a lens through which we view our own blessings and burdens.
That’s not fairness. That’s freedom.
I hope to raise my children in such a way that they understand life is not fair, but the most powerful place to stand is knowing that they are responsible. In that responsibility, they can create a life they love. It may not be equal to other people’s lives, but it will be the one they were meant to live, as long as they play full out.
