The problem isn’t that life is unfair – it’s your broken idea of fairness

Unless you’re winning, most of life will seem hideously unfair to you.

The truth is, life is just playing by different rules.

The real rules are there. They actually make sense. But they’re a bit more complicated, and a lot less comfortable, which is why most people never manage to learn them.

Let’s try.

Rule #1: Life is a competition

That business you work for? Someone’s trying to kill it. That job you like? Someone would love to replace you with a computer program. That girlfriend / boyfriend / high-paying job / Nobel Prize that you want? So does somebody else.

We’re all in competition, although we prefer not to realise it. Most achievements are only notable relative to others. You swam more miles, or can dance better, or got more Facebook Likes than the average. Well done.

It’s a painful thing to believe, of course, which is why we’re constantly assuring each other the opposite. “Just do your best”, we hear. “You’re only in competition with yourself”. The funny thing about platitudes like that is they’re designed to make you try harder anyway. If competition really didn’t matter, we’d tell struggling children to just give up.

Fortunately, we don’t live in a world where everyone has to kill each other to prosper. The blessing of modern civilisation is there’s abundant opportunities, and enough for us all to get by, even if we don’t compete directly.

But never fall for the collective delusion that there’s not a competition going on. People dress up to win partners. They interview to win jobs. If you deny that competition exists, you’re just losing. Everything in demand is on a competitive scale. And the best is only available to those who are willing to truly fight for it.

Rule #2. You’re judged by what you do, not what you think

Society judges people by what they can do for others. Can you save children from a burning house, or remove a tumour, or make a room of strangers laugh? You’ve got value right there.

That’s not how we judge ourselves though. We judge ourselves by ourthoughts.

“I’m a good person”. “I’m ambitious”. “I’m better than this.” These idle impulses may comfort us at night, but they’re not how the world sees us. They’re not even how we see other people.

Well-meaning intentions don’t matter. An internal sense of honour and love and duty count for squat. What exactly can you and have you done for the world?

Abilities are not prized by their virtue. Whatever admiration society awards us, comes from the selfish perspectives of others. A hard working janitor is less rewarded by society than a ruthless stockbroker. A cancer researcher is rewarded less than a supermodel. Why? Because those abilities are rarer and impact more people.

We like to like to think that society rewards those who do the best work. Like so:

But in reality, social reward is just a network effect. Reward comes down mostly to the number of people you impact:

Write an unpublished book, you’re nobody. Write Harry Potter and the world wants to know you. Save a life, you’re a small-town hero, but cure cancer and you’re a legend. Unfortunately, the same rule applies to all talents, even unsavoury ones: get naked for one person and you might just make them smile, get naked for fifty million people and you might just be Kim Kardashian.

You may hate this. It may make you sick. Reality doesn’t care. You’re judged by what you have the ability to do, and the volume of people you can impact. If you don’t accept this, then the judgement of the world will seem very unfair indeed.

Rule #3. Our idea of fairness is self interest

People like to invent moral authority. It’s why we have referees in sports games and judges in courtrooms: we have an innate sense of right and wrong, and we expect the world to comply. Our parents tell us this. Our teachers teach us this. Be a good boy, and have some candy.

But reality is indifferent. You studied hard, but you failed the exam. You worked hard, but you didn’t get promoted. You love her, but she won’t return your calls.

The problem isn’t that life is unfair; it’s your broken idea of fairness.

Take a proper look at that person you fancy but didn’t fancy you back. That’s a complete person. A person with years of experience being someone completely different to you. A real person who interacts with hundreds or thousands of other people every year.

Now what are the odds that among all that, you’re automatically their first pick for love-of-their-life? Because – what – you exist? Because you feel something for them? That might matter to you, but their decision is not about you.

Similarly we love to hate our bosses and parents and politicians. Their judgements are unfair. And stupid. Because they don’t agree with me! And they should! Because I am unquestionably the greatest authority on everything ever in the whole world!

It’s true there are some truly awful authority figures. But they’re not all evil, self-serving monsters trying to line their own pockets and savour your misery. Most are just trying to do their best, under different circumstances to your own.

Maybe they know things you don’t – like, say, your company will go bust if they don’t do something unpopular. Maybe they have different priorities to you – like, say, long term growth over short term happiness.

But however they make you feel, the actions of others are not some cosmic judgement on your being. They’re just a byproduct of being alive.

Why life isn’t fair

Our idea of fairness isn’t actually obtainable. It’s really just a cloak for wishful thinking.

Can you imagine how insane life would be if it actually was ‘fair’ to everyone? No-one could fancy anyone who wasn’t the love of their life, for fear of breaking a heart. Companies would only fail if everyone who worked for them was evil. Relationships would only end when both partners died simultaneously. Raindrops would only fall on bad people.

Most of us get so hung up on how we think the world should work that we can’t see how it does. But facing that reality might just be the key to unlocking your understanding of the world, and with it, all of your potential.

9 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Memory

Having memory problems? We all do at some point, fairly regularly actually. Do you often walk into a room, stop and then begin to question yourself as to why you went in there in the first place? You’re not alone. I do that far too often.

If your memory isn’t too brilliant and you feel like you forget things the majority of the time, important or otherwise, then don’t worry. There are many things that you can do to improve your memory in both the short term and the long term.

The only problem with improving your memory is that it’s pretty difficult to notice any kind of results. Never the less, some of the points I’m about to go through won’t just help with improving your memory, but many of them also are great for relieving stress and keeping your energy levels up. So here are…


1) Meditate

Photo credit: Mitchell Joyce

Researchers at the University of Washington completed a study to see whether meditating would in fact improve memory and concentration. The study involved participants going on an 8 week course that would teach them about meditation and body relaxation.


After these 8 weeks, they were then monitored along with a group that hadn’t undergone the course, performing various daily office tasks, and tested on factors such as their accuracy, speed and ability to multitask. The results of the group who had undertaken meditation clearly outweighed that of the others in terms of improved memory, stress levels and focus.

2) Listen to Music

Photo credit: Sascha Kohlmann

As it turns out, music has so many benefits on a person, and not just from the entertainment value that gives the music industry its huge value. Music has a positive effect on your blood pressure, your heart, immunity, memory, concentration and even athletic performance.

An article on eMed Expert shows exactly what the benefits are and that according to a paper written in the latest UK-based journal of Advanced Nursing, that listening to music can often reduce depression by up to 25%.

It used to be just classical music from artists like Mozart that was thought of as improving peoples’ ability to remember things, but it just so happens that listening to any type of music that gives you personal enjoyment will have the same benefits.

3) Focus on One Task at a Time

Photo credit: Ryan Ritchie

Focusing on just one task at a time will mean that you are able to give your full concentration to this task and not have to think about anything else. Which means your brain won’t be having to remember as many things at once and your thoughts will be focused on just one thing.

This makes it easier for you to remember things because you will be using all your concentration and brain power on one subject, an not splitting it between multiple tasks. Which is partially why when you multitask you become less productive as a whole, and therefore it’s always better to just focus on one thing at once.

4) Chew Gum

Photo credit: Adrien Leguay

Chewing gum has been shown to help people to stay focused on various tasks for longer, according to a study that The British Psychological Society performed. The study showed that anybody who took part in an audio task whilst chewing gum, had quicker reaction times and results that were more accurate than that of those who weren’t chewing gum.

When you chew gum, the flow of oxygen to the brain is increased, which in turn helps to keep people’s concentration levels high. Something that is very important if you wish to remember everything you’re trying to learn. So next time you’re struggling to concentrate on something you’re working on, why not give it a try?

5) Go for a Run

Photo credit: Ken Douglas

Running is healthy in almost every sense, apart from for your knees perhaps. Going for a run every now and then can improve your stamina, your muscle endurance and your state of mind, but it’s also been linked with improving memory and encouraging the development of new brain cells.

Running was taken for an example, but just exercising in general can help towards having a healthy brain and encouraging the growth of brain cells.

6) Doodle

Photo credit: Empress of Blandings

A recent article on Wise Health Geek showed that doodling can increase memory by up to 29% and it also states chewing gum, as mentioned above, improves tests scores by around 5%.

One of my best friends used to constantly doodle in our German language class back in high school. In fact, by the end of the year his German work book was completely covered in doodles and he’d been told many times to stop. But, when it all came down to it he got incredible scores in his exams compared to most of the class.

With that being said, doodling is not something that helps everyone, so there’s a good chance it may not help you out much.

7) Eat Berries

Photo credit: Maira Gall

Berries, or blueberries in particular have been linked more towards slowing down the natural rate of memory loss that comes with aging, rather than improving your memory.

Never the less it will improve your memory in the long term and essentially slow down aging. This is information that has been around for a while, but before this berries were considered as more anti-aging in terms of your skin and general health, rather than being associated with the brain.

An article was written about the study by Harvard researchers of this on CBS News a couple of years ago, by Ryan Jaslow. It gives a little more detail as to how they were able to show the effects of blueberries on a person’s brain.

8) Caffeine

Photo credit: Zach Inglis

Caffeine is often associated with improving your energy levels within the short term, or even causing fatigue if you have too much, but it’s now associated with also improving memory.

A study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, that involved various participants being shown a series of pictures, and then being given a pill. Half of the pills were caffeine pills and the other half were placebos.

After a day had passed, the contestants were showed the pictures again, with some of them being new, and everyone was asked whether they remembered those pictures or not. Needless to say, those who took the caffeine pill performed better than those who didn’t.

9) Challenge Yourself

Photo credit: Voice of Your Soul

Lastly, challenge yourself! How can you expect your memory to improve if you are not challenging your mind at all, to make it improve.

If you are never challenging yourself then your brain has no reason to grow. But if you do, it will be forced to grow as you’re pushing it to improve to cater for your needs.

Source : Motivationgrid