When life isn't fair....

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are times that life simply isn't fair. There are days when we do everything right, when we play by the rules, when we are the 'good guys', and yet, we're thrown a curve ball that knocks us out. Sometimes these events are purely random. Other times they're brought about by people who do not wish us well. Often, these two factors come together in order to form a desperate, unfortunate or frustrating situation. We look to the stars and we wonder "Why me? Why now?". We wail, and we fret and our minds twist in complex spirals trying to reason why we were singled out for this burden. But, wrapping our thoughts around 'why' will not solve these unjust events. It's only by rising above them, by taking our eyes off the situation itself to move into view of the horizon, that we can begin to move on past wrongs done to us.

Literature and movies are filled with stories about good guys who have a series of bad things happen to them. Charles Dickens was the great master of the unfortunates in the way of life's tragedies. More recently, the Harry Potter series is an excellent metaphor for a teenage boy, just trying to figure out who he is, while having the misfortune of being hunted by malevolent beings. Harrison Ford's portrayal of Dr. Richard Kimble, in "The Fugitive", takes us on a wild chase of adventure as an innocent man runs for his life, while trying to solve his wife's murder...all while grieving her death. There is something reassuring about knowing that we are not alone in our struggles against events beyond our control. By reading about them, and watching them on screen, we understand that we have a choice to make: we can either succumb to the pain of unjust failure, or we can make the choice to triumph over whatever adversity life throws at us.

In Charles Dickens' classic novel, "Great Expectations", the tragically compelling figure of Miss Havisham, who remains in her wedding dress for the rest of her life, having been jilted at the alter decades before, is a lesson to us all as to how *not* to deal with life's severe blows. The clocks in her home are stopped. The wedding feast is allowed to rot where it was set. Alone, and bitter for eternity, Miss Havisham makes her life a prison, trapped in her own worst moment forever. If Harry Potter shows bravery in the face of unjust odds against him, then Miss Havisham is his foil. She not only gives into her unjustice, but she allows it to twist and warp her spirit into something that is itself evil.

My own family has been beset by unfair blows, several of which have come in past month. We have looked at one another, thought, "We're good people. We pay our taxes, we work hard, and we love our children. We have never cheated anyone, and we live honorable lives." But, still life circumstances gave us pause for a few days, despairing over both the unknown and the unfairness of a series of events. At that point, we began to realize that we could be stymied by the situations in our lives. Or, we could work to better them. We could allow unfair situations to destroy the lives we've worked hard to achieve, or we could teach our children not to give up. My hope is that, even if we can't overcome every obstacle in our lives' paths, we can know we've done our best to walk the path itself.

In my yoga classes, there is very little that gives me more satisfaction than seeing a student achieve an asana she didn't think she could do. I teach a variety of classes, and have a wide range of students in each of them. The most rewarding class I'm teaching right now is to teenage girls. I'm working with a special program to help these young women build up their strength in body, mind and spirit. For too long, these girls have been told that they're overweight, or stupid, or have little value to people around them. I have the honor of working with these girls, to help inspire them to remove the obstacles standing in the way of their future happiness. One of my students came in so hesitantly, I offered to just have her sit and watch class the first time. She was so unsure of herself, she didn't even want to sit on a mat. By the third class, she was moving through her sun salutations, and I could see a brightness in her smile I hadn't seen before. On the fourth class, I was able to help her into a Bow Pose. This young lady was positive she couldn't do it. But, with my help, and encouragement from others in the class, she reached back and grabbed her ankles. Later on, this young girl's mother confided in me that her daughter had been plagued by a serious lung-related illness all of her life, and was told, by a particularly harsh physican she'd never be able to 'do much'. How incredibly blessed I felt to have been a part of this girl's overcoming her own physical, and emotional, roadblocks. Life may have handed her severe asthma, and it may have beaten her self-esteem down for years, but watching the sheer joy on this girl's face allowed me a humble glimpse into overcoming odds.

Life is rarely fair. Good people get bad diseases. Nasty people often connive their way to the 'top', stomping on others to climb the ladder of success. Wretched people can malign our good name. And, children can be so lost in spirit by the age of 13, that they don't see the point of moving forward. But, at just these times, opportunity for true greatness is upon us. We may not always like the circumstances we find ourselves, but we can darn well do our best to make the conscious choice to keep going.