Finding Happiness When Life Is Blatantly Unfair

When life is so unfair that we want to scream, is there any hope for peace and happiness in these times? There is, when we discover what we aren't and are in control of.

Please note, this is a lecture, not a guided meditation.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Probably one of the hardest questions that any of us are going to ask during our lives is,

Why is life unfair?

When things are going smoothly,

We don't necessarily ask this question,

Even though we may know people that are having a very rough time,

That life is unfair for them.

But when it gets close to home,

Then that question,

Probably the hardest question we'll ever ask is,

Why is life being unfair to me right now?

We all know these stories,

And if we've lived long enough,

They can become very close to our hearts in the sense that we've experienced them as our story.

My own sister,

Just like perhaps you or your mother or your sister or your daughter,

Had the dream of finding her love of her life,

Getting married,

Raising her family,

Letting them get to college,

And then spending the quiet years of our life in retirement with her beautiful husband.

But this is what happened.

When her second son was born,

He had serious heart problems and had five heart surgeries his first year of his life.

He only slept two hours a day,

And that's how much sleep she got.

And when he finally started to get better,

And it looked like he was going to make it,

Then her husband started getting really bad headaches,

And they were so bad they went to the doctor and they found out that he had brain cancer.

And though she did everything in her power to keep him alive,

Two years later,

He had died,

And she was a single mom of a three-year-old and a seven-year-old.

And this is one of countless stories that we all know or will experience in life sooner or later.

We may block our hearts from feeling the effects of other people's pain and suffering,

Their unfairness in life,

But probably if we live long enough,

Sooner or later it's going to come knocking on our door.

So what do we do?

Is it hopeless?

Do we just grow old,

Suffer,

And die?

Or is there things in life that we can do to still find happiness,

Peace,

And tranquility in our lives,

Regardless of what life throws us,

Regardless of how unfair life can be sometimes?

Well,

There's a very important question we have to ask ourselves,

And that question is,

What am I in control of?

And there's two answers to this question.

Externally,

There's not a lot that I'm in control of.

On the surface,

It feels like it is.

I mean,

I'm the one that chooses to go to college or not.

I'm the one that chooses to exercise or not.

I'm the one who chooses who I marry or not.

I'm the one who chooses a job or not.

That may seem true,

And in many ways it is,

But there's so many different factors that we can't control.

We can't control what country we were born in.

We can't control the parents that we had,

The opportunities or lack of opportunities that they provided for us.

We can't control the genetics that we were given and predispositions towards diseases or illnesses or malformities that we may get.

There's lots of things that we just aren't in control of,

And even when we work really hard to gain control of things,

In a heartbeat,

It can be taken away from us.

One of my dearest friends worked really hard,

Saved as much money as she could with her husband,

Borrowed as much as they could to open up a business,

And when that business closed because of the world economy,

Now she's left with a debt that she'll be paying off for the next 10 years.

And there are just so many external things that we're just not in control of.

So many.

And I don't know how it works.

I don't know why one person gets so much and someone else can have so little.

I don't know why tragedy strikes one family and another seems to come out unscathed.

I don't have that answer.

But what I do know is that we are in complete control of one thing.

And that's our response to what's happening in our lives.

That with work and conditioning,

We can control,

We can mold,

And we can make it so that with life's ups and downs,

Which we have so little control over,

We can control how we respond to what life throws us.

And when it throws us things that seem unfair and are unfair,

We can say,

Life,

I know this is what you've given me,

But I'm not going to let you win.

I'm going to choose peace and happiness for my life,

No matter what.

And in many ways,

If you've been listening to this happiness podcast for long,

This is the main message that I teach.

And I keep teaching it over and over again.

Because when we get it,

It's a life changer.

Because even though it seems like we're not in control of very much,

In many ways,

We're in complete control of our destiny.

And the way that we're in control is not what happens,

But how we respond and live well to whatever happens.

And I mean whatever.

And the way we do that is,

We begin to stop having expectations that life goes a certain way.

Life goes a way it wants to go.

And sometimes we can control it.

But it's when those times that we can't,

They're the real important ones.

They're the ones we need to say,

Okay,

I know I want life to go this way,

But it's not.

And I've done everything in my power to get it to go this way.

And it's still not going this way.

So what am I going to do?

How am I going to make this,

My life,

Work the way it's going?

Because this,

After everything I've done,

Is the way life is going right now.

And here's the key,

Here's the bottom line.

Really listen.

When life isn't going the way that we want it to,

We have to let go of that.

We have to say,

Oh,

This is the way my life is going.

I can make this work.

If we say,

No,

It's not supposed to go this way,

And we hang on to that for too long,

Then we're going to suffer.

Yes,

It's good to express it for a little bit.

But then we say,

Okay,

I get it.

This isn't what I expected,

But I'm going to make this work,

Whatever this is.

And when we take that attitude,

And we take that approach that no matter what life gives us,

We're going to make it work,

Then life goes well.

I want to use an analogy to illustrate what I'm talking about.

Let's condense our lives to one year.

So instead of living 80 years,

We metaphorically live one year,

One full year of life.

And that's our life condensed from 80 years into one.

And when this year begins,

We're given a ticket.

It's a plane ticket to travel around the world in one year.

We can go wherever we want and do whatever we want to do.

And it sounds great.

We're going to have a wonderful time.

But then we begin to travel.

And we realize sometimes when we get to the airport,

Our flight has been canceled or severely delayed.

And we can get mad.

We can get upset.

We can get angry.

And we can just really,

Really,

Really not be happy about this.

Or we can say,

Oh,

I have an extra day or a few extra days at this airport in this city.

I'm going to get out and explore and see what's here.

And it may happen that all the airlines are shut down for the entire year.

And we can't go anywhere.

And we're stuck in this one city.

And we can be mad because we were expecting to travel the world.

Or we can say,

Oh,

This is the city that I'm in.

Huh.

How do I explore this city?

How do I meet friends here and make this work this year that I have to travel?

And I was hoping to travel the world,

But now I'm stuck in this city.

Or let's say we get to go somewhere else.

And when we get there,

Someone sticks something illegal in our suitcase.

Or maybe we put something illegal in our suitcase because we like the idea of that extra money.

And we get caught at customs.

And we get to spend the next six months in jail.

And we lost six months,

Half of our year traveling because of the decision someone else made for us or the silly decision that we made.

Now we can spend that six months in jail being miserable.

Or we can say,

Huh,

I guess I have six months to meditate and get to know my inmates that are in jail with me or maybe even take a course so that when I get out,

I have new skills that I can apply for the rest of my year traveling.

Or let's say we make it 11 months of our trip and it's going so well we're having such a wonderful time.

And then tragedy hits.

We look out the window and realize one of the engines stopped working.

And that probably means we may crash and die unless they can find a landing spot soon enough.

We don't know.

We're hoping and trusting that the pilot can find a spot to land with our limited capacity.

But we just don't know.

And so we may have a half an hour or an hour to contemplate whether we're going to live or die.

And we can use that time in fear and panic.

Or we can use that time to live well,

That last part of our journey.

Or maybe we're in a town where there isn't any airport.

And during that entire year,

We don't get to go anywhere.

It seems so unfair.

Or again we can say,

How do we make this work?

I was expecting to travel the world.

But instead,

I'm going to be here.

How do I make this work?

Life can really be unfair sometimes.

That we just cannot control.

And I don't know why it happens.

There may be reasons we find out when we die.

But when we're going through it,

I don't know.

We just can come up with ideas.

But perhaps,

Perhaps a better approach is to say this.

Okay,

I don't know why life is being unfair.

But I'm going to make this work.

If there is one person on this planet who is in my situation and living well,

Then that's a possibility.

And I'm going to take that possibility.

I'm going to live that life.

Because that's the one thing I'm in control of.

I can choose how I respond to life.

And when life is blatantly unfair,

I can still choose to have a beautiful life.

No one,

Nothing can keep me from that.

And I will make whatever life gives me work.

Because I know people out there have been through what I've been through and done well.

They've done exceptionally well.

And I'm going to choose that path.

I'm not going to give up.

I'm not going to numb myself with some addiction.

I'm going to choose to have a beautiful life no matter what.

And no matter what gets thrown my way,

I'm going to make this work.

So metaphorically,

I'm stuck in the airport.

I'm going to get out there and see what's around until my flight leaves.

And perhaps it will never leave.

Then I'm going to still make my life work.

We can all do this.

But it is a radical acceptance of what we're in control of and not in control of.

And there's a lot of things that we're not in control of.

But there's a lot of things ultimately that we're in control of.

Because we're ultimately in control of our response to what happens.

And when we get that to our core,

When we realize no one,

No matter what they do to me,

No matter what people did to me in my past,

Are going to take away from my joy and happiness now,

Then we realize that our lives can truly be a beautiful adventure no matter what.

We may have to let go of every expectation that we had for life.

But by letting all of them go,

We can still have a beautiful life because we're going to decide to live well no matter what.

And we're going to find the joy and beauty in our lives no matter what's going on.

It's always a possibility.

We just have to look for the beauty without any expectations that it has to go a certain way.

Because when we let go of those expectations,

Then we relax.

And life,

No matter what it sends us,

Goes better.

When we let go,

The life has to go a certain way and instead say,

Oh,

I expected it to go this way,

But I guess it decided to go that way.

I'm going to make that work.

And whatever life throws us,

We can truly have a beautiful life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

I really enjoyed this. I was feeling overwhelmed by life being bad and this calmed me down

One of my favorite sayings is when life gives one lemons then make lemonade! I am grateful for you. Thanks so much.

The concept is so simple but when I really examine my reactions to unexpected events I don’t like, I could sure use some improvement. Thank you for the encouragement!

I needed to hear this. Thank you so much

I really appreciated this message, it was just what I needed Today, for the rest of my Day’s 🌹

You always find a way to put things into perspective...it’s all about gratitude even if life is far from our expectations. Thank you so very much!

You always inspire, Dr. Puff! Thank you! Blessings. Namaste.✨⭐️💞🙏🏼

Thank you very much Dr.Puff. 🙏