Life’s not fair

Life’s not fair is it.  It’s all about dealing with it and finding your way through the crap.  I was thumbing through the newspaper, enjoying the wonderful pictures of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations when a chunk of it hit me between the eyes.

You didn’t have to be a royalist to appreciate the pomp and ceremony that England excels at.  The Queen showed what a trooper she is with, seemingly, stamina to spare.  I don’t know many elderly ladies who could have coped.

So feeling quite upbeat and ‘all’s well in my world’, I glanced down the page.  Sitting up straight I found myself re-reading the paragraph to ensure I hadn’t misread it.

Now I know that newspapers deal in sensationalism, and you only get to read what’s been decided by the editor.  Nevertheless, there was a grain of truth that struck a cord with me.  I was reading about a group of unemployed people ferried to London. They had volunteered to work as unpaid stewards for the river pageant, and had arrived earlier than expected.

These volunteers were hoping that, by showing willing, they would progress to paid work at the coming Olympics.  Cold and wet, they were left to shelter under one of the London bridges until it was time to work.  Dumped in effect.

How unfair for every single one of those unpaid volunteers.  At the very least, a hot cooked breakfast should have been waiting.  Too early?  Then tea, coffee and biscuits to warm them up.

Planned to the finest detail (not!), the three days of celebration cost a lot of money.  I would love to read that the other people working alongside them were all volunteers too.  But I’m guessing most of them were paid double or triple.

So there you have it.  At the top of the scale was a seamless pageant that finished with amazing fireworks.  At the bottom, a platoon of Cinderella’s, doing the donkey work.

Nothing’s real is it?  A kaleidoscope of colour and warmth, everything that money could buy was on show, masking impoverished helpers at the end of the scale.  A bit like the fable of ‘The Emporer’s New Clothes’ really.

Hopefully, those workers will be rewarded at the Olympics, and with a decent salary, that rewards their commitment and hard work.

But life’s not fair is it?  What’s unfair to one person is perfectly reasonably to another.  As I said before, It’s all about dealing with it and finding your way through the crap.

So when life’s not fair how can you pick yourself up?  You might want to try this.  It’s not unreasonable to feel angry and/or misused.  Allow yourselves to feel all of that anger from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.  But only for 5 minutes – time yourself.  You can repeat this exercise every hour as need be.

You’ve given yourself permission to wallow in life’s unfairness for an allotted time.  By doing so, you free yourself to move away from it for the other 55 minutes.  Don’t think about whatever it is that’s making you mad.  If it tries to come through, and it will, remind yourself that you will vent it at the allotted time.

Instead, do nothing.  Focus on your breathing, deep breathe in, long breathe out.  Allow yourself the space for your Inner Wisdom to come through.  Gradually the feelings of anger will change until they fade altogether.  It doesn’t mean that life won’t treat you unfairly again.  It does mean that you’ve found a way to help you to deal with it and move on with your life.

If you have any other tips of dealing with unfairness, why not share them here in the comments section.  Thank you for sharing – Namaste.

photo credit: Tim Trueman (http://www NULL.flickr NULL.com/photos/ttrueman/7284721282/) via photo pin (http://photopin NULL.com) cc (http://creativecommons NULL.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2 NULL.0/)