On Fairness and Playgrounds

When I was in gradeschool, one of my classmates called me fat. Before I could respond (a.k.a. punch this kid in the face because I do not tolerate bullies), my bestfriend interrupted and said, "Yeah, but she's... good at Math!"

My bestfriend and I still laugh about it 'til now. I love her.

I went home that day pondering on what happened, and I realized that... I AM good at Math! I'm actually awesome at Math! But I'm also fat. Awesomely fat.

That was the moment when I decided that life is fair.

If you look at life in a linear way: fat - thin, good at Math - sucks at Math, rich - poor, etc., it will seem that life is unfair.

If you look at life in just a single spectrum of a certain quality and notice yourself to be close to one end of it, it will always seem that you lack or have too much of that particular quality. Think of it as a seesaw. You may want to be on top when you're at the bottom looking up and vice versa.

But life is composed of multiple combinations of those spectra. And somehow, if you sum up all these positive and negative qualities, you'll approach 0. Meaning life can pretty much be fair.

I stuck with this idealistic point of view until I found out what makes people's lives unfair.

Remember those spectra I was talking about? When someone is too good or bad at one of those, and he uses that quality to hurt someone else, that's when the seesaws get toppled. Just like how my classmate tried to do it to mine when he called me fat.

It was easy to handle that classmate since we were all kids and we were just in a classroom. I could easily punch him in the face* and life will be fair again. But what if you have no idea how to punch? What if you're one of those people who are good at Math, but sucks at punching? What if you're too nice and the bully is too mean? What if you are your own bully? How will you restore the seesaws then?

Life is fair. PEOPLE make it UNFAIR. The people who are too good at taking advantage are the ones messing up all our seesaws. And the only way to fight (besides punching them in the face) is to look for someone who can guard your playground and put the seesaws back to normal.

Sometimes, that someone can be your bestfriend (see first paragraph). Sometimes, it can be your parents or someone you hire to defend you. But most of the time, that someone is just you.

At the end of the day, those are your seesaws and you must learn to protect them. But until you can't, find comfort in the fact that those bullies have a very special place in the playground of hell.

*Kids, do not punch your classmates in the face.

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PS: I would like to send virtual hugs to those who are being bullied and have no idea how to protect their own playground as of the moment. *HUG*