There is a cruel sort of poetry in the way we are taught, from the time we are small, to believe in fairness. “Take turns,” the teacher says. “Share equally.” We are handed stickers for good behavior, gold stars for effort, trophies for participation. We are told that if we work hard, if we do the right thing, if we follow the rules, things will work out. We are told that fairness is not just an ideal but a guarantee.
And then, of course, life breaks that promise. Again and again and again.
The promotion goes to the incompetent nephew of the boss. The person who cheats gets ahead. The kindest person you know gets cancer. You watch someone lie and manipulate their way into success while you, honest and steadfast, are left behind. A child is born into wealth and another into hunger, and no merit, no virtue, no hard work explains the gap.
The gap is the point.
Here’s the truth: life is not fair. And the sooner you stop expecting it to be, the freer you become.
I don’t say this to advocate for cynicism, but to make space for realism—and liberation. Because fairness, as we imagine it, is a human construct. Nature does not abide by it. The universe does not tally up good deeds and dispense blessings accordingly. Justice, as we fight for it, is not the same as fairness. Justice is a collective pursuit; fairness is an expectation that things will even out personally. And they don’t.
To expect fairness is to set yourself up for a lifelong emotional seesaw of outrage and confusion. It is to believe that pain and difficulty are mistakes in the system rather than features of the terrain. It is to feel perpetually robbed, perpetually wronged, even by forces that are not personal at all.
When you stop expecting fairness, you make room for something sturdier: meaning.
Meaning doesn’t require fairness. In fact, meaning often emerges from the very unfairness we endure. Viktor Frankl, writing from the unimaginable horror of a concentration camp, understood this: life doesn’t owe us happiness or fairness, but we can make meaning out of suffering. We can choose how to respond to what is given.
That doesn’t mean we accept injustice. It means we don’t confuse cosmic fairness with human justice. We can still fight for what is right without believing that we are entitled to an outcome simply because it would be fair. Fairness is an aspiration, not an operating principle of the universe.
When you stop expecting fairness, you stop being surprised by hardship. You stop taking it personally when someone less deserving wins, when your efforts go unrewarded, when tragedy strikes without reason. You stop wasting your energy shaking your fists at the sky and start asking better questions: What can I do with this? How do I want to show up in this moment? What will I build, even from the ruins?
And you stop waiting. You stop waiting for the scales to balance, for karma to catch up, for the moral scoreboard to finally reflect your side. You stop delaying your peace until some invisible ledger proves you were right all along.
You live.
You live knowing that fairness is rare, but grace is possible. That justice is worth pursuing, even if the world doesn’t guarantee it. That kindness matters, not because it ensures reward, but because it makes you the kind of person who can survive an unfair world with your soul intact.
The world is not fair. It never was. But it can still be beautiful. And you can still be good. And you can still choose, every single day, to stand up, to love, to create, to forgive, to try again—not because fairness demands it, but because you do.