Life is Unfair

“Life is Unfair” – we hear this statement a lot from young people or teenagers (but adults are not exempt from this either), men and women of all ages.

A few days ago my wife, Faye, and I watched the movie The Great Gatsby and we loved it. We find the story to be epical. I am personally a fan of a well woven story & I am not really very particular with the CG (Computerized Graphics) and other visual stuff. The story was told by Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) and he talked about a guy that he looked up to – The Great Gatsby (Leonardo Dicaprio). The story has really captured the reality of the proverb, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Prov. 18:24)

Today my wife shared to me a funny set of clips from a famous gag site where Leonardo Dicaprio is receiving an award from Golden Globe. In the clip he was ranting (not his own words, but rants made by the creator of the clip) that he has been nominated numerous times before and never an award, and that if his life was to be turned into a film he would want Jennifer Lawrence to play the role of Leo (because she has never received an award either). He further comically said that no one in the room understood how he felt, and then apologized immediately to Amy Adams who was in the same room (because she too has never received an award despite being a great actress).

I did a little research on it and discovered that the clipping was half true. The clips were really true where Leo received the award, but it is not true that he never got an award in the past, and it is not true that he said those statements. He did get an previous awards (3 wins, 31 nominations) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Leonardo_DiCaprio

The same is true for Jenifer Lawrence (80 wins, 161 Nominations) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Jennifer_Lawrence

However, Amy Adams is quite nearing the reality claim (1 win, 5 nominations) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Amy_Adams

We often find ourselves in the same predicament like these famous actors and actresses. We give our best, we go the extra mile, and we strive for excellence in what we do – but nobody notices, nobody cares. That is not true! That is a huge fat lie that you have been made to believe by society. That is what you see and hear in the media. Maybe even your parents taught you that life principle. Do good and expect good things to happen, but what if after all the good you have done you still end up with the short end of the stick?

I believe that life/fate/destiny (or whatever you would like to say it in a politically correct way) in a nutshell is like a coin, there is an upside and there is a downside, and they are both part of the same coin. We need to learn that both sides are given to us by God to benefit us, to grow us, to develop us to become the man (or woman) He wants you to become – someone to radiate his likeness. 

Life is unfair – Yes. It is unfair that the victim should be punished for the crime of the offender. It is unfair that a man is acquitted of murder, and instead is given the right to ownership of the wealth owned by the father of the person he killed. It is unfair to show love to someone who hated you their entire life. 

Yes, I agree with you, it is unfair that a loving God chose to forgive you. Instead of passing judgement He chose to show grace and mercy is the same thing that God did for each of us when he gave his Son and made us heirs to his kingdom. “Unfair” is just a word that varies on the perspective of the person looking, but if you look closely we are all treated fairly and we are receiving our just reward/punishment because Jesus is just.


"You desire but you do not have, so you kill. You covet bet you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God."
- James 4:2