Fallacy of Fairness (DW#501)
Today’s distortion is called "fallacy of fairness" closely related to, and sometimes referred to as "Heaven’s Reward Fallacy".
The fallacy of fairness leads us to believe that the world in general and certainly our life "should" be fair.
Truth be told, this is a distortion that I fall into quite often. In my head, if we have good intentions, work hard and do the right thing, we should get good results. Are you with me on this?
The problem with thinking in this way is that we are often disappointed and even angry when we are faced with proof of "life’s unfairness". When something happens which does not appear fair, we resist the reality of it, telling ourselves "it should not be like this". (Guess who wins when we fight with reality?)
Those who are realists are more at peace when faced with situations that appear unfair. They seem to accept that "it is what it is" and tend not to go into long discussions in their head about why it should not be this way.
When we recognize that we are operating under the fallacy of fairness, it is time to remind ourselves that we can only control our own actions. That we are never in charge of other people’s actions or reactions and that we do not even have control over outcome of our own actions.
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