Friday, June 28, 2013

Fairness

As someone who has been a leader for 20+ years, and a human being for 62 years, I have often been challenged to treat everyone fairly.  The desire to be fair is hard wired into my personal DNA.  This is sometimes complicated because fairness is in the eye of the beholder.  One thing I have determined for myself, however, is that fairness is not always equal.  I strive to give every person what they need.  The reality is that some need more and others need less.  A few people are simply “needy” while some people are just “low maintenance”.  Some people, regardless of need, often want more.  Other people need little and seldom ask for anything.  Juggling these different needs I strive to balance my sense of fairness with a dose of kindness and compassion.  My kindness, however, should not be seen as weakness and my compassion can have a self-imposed limit if I begin to experience “compassion fatigue”.  Sooner or later all of us must realize that we can’t always have everything we want, all our needs won’t be met, sometimes we have to accept no for an answer, and occasionally we just have to get over it and move on with our life.  These thoughts are simply a reminder that whoever we are, we need to accept and remember that the entire universe does not revolve around any of us as individuals or around our personal needs and wants.  If I can get my way most of the time I am happy.  I have always heard that life is 80/20.  80% of the time life is good and things go my way.  20% of the time life might suck and things don’t go my way.  I can live with this and all of us will be forced to life with it sooner or later.      
 

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