Life is Fair ... Isn't It?

"What goes around comes around."

"It all works out in the end."

"Good things happen to good people."

"You get what you give."

And the list goes on ...

I have raised my children with these mantras. Life is not always fair ... but it usually works out in the end. It is only by looking back, that we understand that we had to go through life as we lived it, to get to the place we are today.

I still believe that. To an extent.

Health issues, unexpected loss and accidents? Who understands why these things happen? If you look hard enough, you can find some good that has come out of a bad situation. You may have to dig deep. But you can usually find a few morsels of goodness that come from unthinkable situations.

But day to day, week to week, year to year ... I still believe that if you live your life 'doing unto others ...', you usually find behaviours reciprocated. Even if you don't, you know that you have treated another person and situation the way that you would like to be treated. It's still good.

It is in those little setbacks that one questions all of the 'wisdom' that I have tried to live, breathe and impart on my children.

My Second Son and His Girlfriend have taken on extra jobs, have pursued any income earning opportunities that they can, they have sold off luxury items and taken on overtime at work. They have cut out extra spending, found ways to economize with their groceries and carpooled to work. You name it, they have done it ever since they bought a house to be moved to their farm in the spring.

That is why it was so disheartening to see them victimized by a random act of vandalism yesterday. My Son's truck was sitting right outside the living room window. I was home all day. There is a constant rotation of people coming and going around our home. Yet someone broke the window on My Son's truck. In broad daylight. On a busy street. With people 'everywhere'. 

They took nothing (except perhaps some house keys which no longer work since we changed all of our locks). They simply broke a window and went in and messed things up in his truck. Thankfully they didn't destroy the interior just for the sake of destroying it. They 'just' messed it up.

A few minutes out of their day destroyed My Son and His Girlfriend's belief that taking small, but steady steps towards their goal would be rewarded.

It will cost more than they made at their second job this month to replace the window. Every penny that they 'saved' by carpooling has been wasted. If My Son had driven his truck to work, it wouldn't have been sitting in the driveway to be a sitting duck for this random act of recklessness.

I struggle to find the lesson here.

One will never, ever know what could have happened if My Son had driven to work yesterday. Roads were slippery yesterday morning. One never knows the accident that may have been averted by him not being at a particular spot at the wrong time.

As a parent, I just want to make it better. As a co-struggler in life's (seemingly) unjust lessons, I know that this isn't the first ... nor will it be the last time that bad things happen to good people.

You can do everything right ... but still have the wrong things happen. Life isn't always fair. Sometimes? It just plain sucks. But we have to keep taking one forward step at a time and push ourselves through even when it makes you feel like giving up.

Yesterday .... a doctor could have handed over a diagnosis that was unfair, unthinkable and something that came completely out of left field. We could have been dealt a blow that money couldn't fix.

In the grand scheme of things ... he is still very lucky. I will fall back on one of the mottos that I still believe with every fibre of my being. If our problems are something that money can solve ... we are (still) very, very fortunate.