FAIR?

I remember when I was a young child, everything was fair. If Tommy got a juice box, I got a juice box. If Tommy got $5 from grandma, I got $5 from grandma. Tooth Fairy was fair, Santa was fair, the Easter Bunny was fair and so on.

I was raised by loving parents who tried to be extremely fair and consistent between myself and my brother. Tommy is 18 months older than me, so we're about as close as you could be. Everything that he got, I got. There was even 1 time where he went and got his ear pierced right before he went off on a school trip to Europe so by the time he got back, his hole was fairly established. Dad's rule was no earrings. "If you get an earring, I will rip it out." Well guess who was able to go get his ear pierced since Tommy had one? - Yup, me.. only difference was I did not have to wait.

We were fair, fair, fair, fair and yet somehow Tommy and I still turned out to be extremely different. We are night and day. He is a long haired, free spirited hippie type and I am a short haired, by the book Marine. So did this fair thing really work? In some aspects I say yes because we are both good men, raising good families and share a lot of the same core values. But if your measurement is that we are the same, then No - it did not work.

As you get older and enter the workforce you start to hear things like, "Life is not fair". And at first coming from fair, fair, fair - - that was a very hard thing for me to understand and to swallow. I struggled with it. My instincts and my upbringing told me that life was supposed to be fair and for it to be otherwise was wrong.

Now fast forward a couple of decades and I'm the one saying life isn't fair. When I stop and I think about it, I agree with it. For me - personally, I don't think life should be fair and nor do I want it to be. You are entitled to your own opinion, but my opinion is that life naturally is not fair and that's the way that it should be.

I am so disappointed when I hear people say, "Fair is fair. You did this for him, now you got to do that for me". It's disappointing to hear adults say that because when you're asking for everything to be fair, basically you are asking to be brought down to the lowest common denominator. No matter how hard you try, you cannot bring someone else's mindset and performance up to the exact same height as your best performer. Your best performer may have more experience and skills than the others. For instance, I'm good at English and History. My brother is better at Math and Science. I cannot make him better at English and History. I cannot bring him up to my level. At the same time, he could not do the same for me in Math and Science. I will never be at the same level as he is in Math and Science. Outside of his college education in Marine Biology - I have no desire at all to be as good as him in those subjects - I have no interest in it at all. I'm not going to put in the work to do it. We're not going to be the same. And so the only way to get us on the same level is to dumb him down to my level. So is it fair to him to be brought down to my level of math skills? In my opinion - No, it's not.

When you're asking for fairness, you're asking to be brought down to the lowest level in the room. This goes against my my whole life philosophy which is growth and expansion. To become the best version of myself today. I also believe in individuality and the individual person. I strive to manage and treat people and interact with them on a very personal and unique and individual level. I am not one size fits all. In fact, I absolutely freaking hate that style. I despise it. When you're asking for fair, you're asking to be treated like everyone else.

Well, Billy was in a bad place and Billy needed to borrow $10. Now I like to help people and I want to help Billy out but I can't. "I am sorry Billy, I can't loan that to you. If I loan you the $10 and I have to be fair then I have to loan $10 to everybody." Gotta be fair.

I have worked in environments like that - the 1 size fits all and fair environments and it was horrible. Some corporate environments treats people like that because it's safe & easy. When you have big numbers of people, you have a big HR department, it's easier to go one size fits all, no questions asked. Those are the rules. They're not going to bend them. They're not going to break them because if they do it for you, they have to do it for 5,000 other employees. - I get that and it sucks and I hated it. When I think back upon my childhood, 1 of the things that I rebelled against (& there was a lot) was being treated like everyone else. I want to be me.. I want to be seen and recognized for me - not for being like someone else I am not.

So the next time you're thinking that life isn't fair and you are feeling like a victim. You find yourself wishing life was fair, I'm going to encourage you to stop and think about this - Do I want to be brought down to the lowest level? Do you want to be treated like everyone else? If the answer is yes, then continue on your path. But if you value your individuality and if you want to be the best you can be then you must catch yourself and embrace the fact that life is not fair.

Life isn't fair and you don't want it to be, it will only hold you back. I hope that you are about expansion and growth and becoming the best version of you because there is so much more power and control and fulfillment on that path.