Fair enough

"It's not fair," we whine, and if we have a certain kind of parent, they reply, "life isn't fair."

And they're right, and we know it, and so what? That doesn't change the fact that we want a thing we can't have in that moment, and probably our sibling does, or something.

But here's the thing: It is much easier to think about how unfair life is when it seems unfair in a way we don't like. I, for one, forget about how often it is unfair in ways that benefit us, in big-picture (race, class, sex, ability, gender, straight...) privilege ways, in small-picture found-a-dollar-on-the-street ways, and in thousands of medium ways.

I mean, life's not fair in any direction, right? And it is for sure less good-fair, overall, to lots of people than it is to me.

Day 29 of our month of gratitude: I am thankful for the occasional ability to be mindful of times that life is unfair in my favor, for chances to use that to make life a little fairer for someone else, for chances to let that awareness offset the times my life is unfair in ways I dislike.