Your Better Self with Akanna: It’s Not Fair, It’s Life

Why can’t fish just enjoy an unperturbed swim in the sea? Not only are they ambushed by hungry humans, they are also snatched out of water by birds.

In Swedish lakes, the Osprey – a fish-eating bird of prey – hovers momentarily above the water before diving in, feet first, to pluck up a hapless fish out of the water for its meal. Watching this, it just doesn’t seem fair. What has the poor fish done to deserve death, all to satisfy this preying bird’s hunger?

But that’s just life. Life isn’t fair. Some eat and some are eaten.

The universe has rules built into it. These rules may seem unfair to us, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are there and are to be obeyed.

It is unfair, for example, that in order to give something to someone who’s downstairs, I can throw it to them and it’s guaranteed to get to them – since it certainly has to reach the ground. Meanwhile if they wanted to give something to me, they’re not guaranteed that it gets to my level of the building when they throw it up. It may stop just under me and fall back down, or even go above me, past my floor, to an upper level. For a guaranteed delivery of that object to me, they’d have to come all the way upstairs, to me, spending more of their time and energy and causing them more inconvenience than it cost me.

It’s not fair. The same way it takes more time (years upon years) and energy (hard work) to build up your career and reputation, than it does to tear them down. A single scandal can ruin you in a single day! It’s not fair, it’s life.

In that scenario, the rules of gravity were working in my favour and against the person standing downstairs, wanting to throw something up to me. Speaking of gravity, if you step off the ledge of a tall building, is it fair that you fall to the ground – sometimes to your death? It doesn’t happen that way in other planets after all. If you lose ground, lose your standing, you fall.

It’s not fair. The same way that if you stand for nothing life, if you don’t stand your ground, you’ll just fall for anything. People will push you around and sometimes push you into making bad decisions that destroy you and have no effect whatsoever on them. It doesn’t seem fair. They should at least suffer a bit for leading you astray. But it’s life. Life isn’t fair.

It seems that you have to be constantly taking action and counteraction, exerting yourself daily, just in order to maintain a sure footing in life. It’s like planting a garden. You may plant beautiful flowers and leave them to grow. If you take no further actions to work the garden, weeds will grow and your flowers will die. You didn’t plant weeds and you certainly didn’t water them. You planted flowers so why then are weeds growing and running your garden?

It’s just not fair. The same way when you get married and decide that’s the end of all the hard work. You’ve scored. No more frequent dates with your spouse, no more long hours of communicating, no more winning them over. You’re just going to sit back and bask in your marital bliss as it organically grows into this beautiful garden. Then what happens? It all starts falling apart before your very eyes. Weeds begin to grow and your marriage is under the threat of being choked out by them. You have to constantly work on it, constantly grow as a person, and constantly make changes. It’s not easy. It’s not fair. It’s just life.

Life has its rules. We understand those rules when it’s physical, just like the food chain in the animal kingdom. But when it comes to the non-physical application of those same rules, we kick and scream “IT’S NOT FAIR!”

You know that hapless fish plucked up from the Swedish lake by the Osprey was not so hapless or harmless after all? The fish is called the Northern Pike and it was also on its way to eat another fish called the Perch, which was on its way to eat the Bleak that was on its way to feed on a hapless Mountain Shrimp. It’s just everyday life in the lake.

In your own everyday life too, there are those who may be higher than you (perhaps in rank, status or some form of achievement) in the food chain, and they are unfortunately waiting for you (to become vulnerable) in order to feed on you at your hapless moment.

So, what to do? You have to make sure you’re not hapless, then! You have to seek protection and growth within the right quarters – always. You have to constantly work on your personal development, becoming your better self –  in order to rise up from the hapless bottom of the food chain, which is filled with pettiness, ignorance, ineptitude and a sheer lack of self responsibility; to the top, as you aim for self-actualization. Because they will come for you. Oh yes, they will! As long as you remain in such low levels of their perceived food chain.

It’s not fair, I know. Why can’t life just leave you alone to enjoy it in your ignorant bliss? I have the same questions too. But this is life we’re talking about here and if you’ve learnt anything from this article, it’s that life is not fair. If it were, there wouldn’t be an animal food chain in the first place.