These Are The Cards You’ve Been Dealt

A while back I had an interesting conversation with a tenant of mine.  He was a tall, athletic young man and during a party of inebriation he asked me,

“SAY!  Yourrr’re the economist…. whyyyy can’t I be a baseball playyyer…  It’sss all I ever wanted to be.”

I wanted to believe he was joking, or at least it was the alcohol talking. But underneath it all you could tell he thought it unfair that he couldn’t get into the major leagues. In further conversation he said “he tried his best” and that there was “no justice” in that they wouldn’t let him in.

I didn’t try reasoning with him or explaining things to him as much as I did laugh at him and give him a blunt and real world economic explanation. I explained not only did you have to be an AMAZING athlete to get into the major leagues, but that he wasn’t strong or fast enough. He was no doubt STRONG and FAST, but he wasn’t a professional athlete. Out of the 150 million men in this country thousands were better than him, and STILL weren’t good enough to get into major league baseball.

He didn’t get offended and didn’t pummel the shit out of me, and even seemed to finally accept the truth I had just given him, but it got me wondering what on Earth would drive an otherwise normally-thinking, mentally-healthy young man to believe he was entitled to become a professional baseball player. And then it dawned on me. It had nothing to do with mental health or a lapse in logic, but rather a concept that has been pummeled into our brains since were were little children.

Life should be “fair.”

Fair

The concept of fairness is one that applies to how society should be structured, organized, governed and managed. We should treat everybody under the law the same. Society should offer the same opportunities to everyone. Everybody should have the same rights, no more, no less than anybody else. It’s all “fair.” And fairness is a good thing, for without it you then have genuine victims and genuine criminals. Worse, if things aren’t “fair” you deter people’s production as in:

“Why would I work 80 hours a week to support my wife who is about to divorce me and take 50% of my assets and demand alimony afterwards? That’s not fair.”

“Why should I major in engineering while Sorority Sally majors in Early Childhood Education, yet society says she’s an ‘equal.’  That’s not fair.”

And thus society’s standards of living suffer.

Alas, not only because fairness is important to society, but as individuals we have the instinctual demand for self-respect, “fairness” is a concept constantly hammered and hounded upon us. At three you are told “it’s not fair to steal your brother’s candy.” From all of K-12 your teachers insist on everything be “fair.” And when you’re in college your liberal arts professors do nothing but whine and complain about how the world is so “unfair.” So when you graduate from college you think the real world should, ought to be, and is fair.

Oh, you foolish man.

Reality

The problem with “fair” is that it is an ideal. It is a goal. It is NOT always reality. Additionally, “fair” only applies to how we SHOULD treat each other in society. It is not a guarantee that we WILL. And the problem MANY of us have is after 23 years of brainwashing from childhood to college graduation we are all predisposed to think we’re entitled to fairness.

“Why can’t I be a professional baseball player?”
“How come other people have more money than me?”
“Why can’t I find a job with my English Literature degree?”
“Why do men date younger women?”

etc. etc.

Of course, these are complaints that come from our standard group of single moms, SJW’s, socialists, and other ROK whipping boys. But sometimes we too must look into the mirror:

“Why do women like taller men?”
“Why do whites make more money?”
“Those Asians are just better at math!”
“Why did I come from a broken home?”
“Well they don’t have ADHD like I do!”

If you think about it, we, perhaps even unconsciously, find ourselves complaining a lot about how life is “unfair.” And then go down the same delusional path of those we just mocked and ridiculed.

The Cards You’ve Been Dealt

The reason I bring this up is that I have noticed since starting Asshole Consulting there is still a (perhaps unconscious) pre-programmed entitlement and expectation among our ranks of men for “fairness.” Again, this is not shocking given how much time, energy, and resources have been expended into brainwashing you to think you’re entitled to fairness. But since these expectations are not based in reality you will at MINIMUM waste time, energy, and mental resources anguishing over it.

Worse, in making concrete life plans and decisions in “Should-a-Land” you doom your life to failure because they’re based in fairness and not reality. And after looking at several clients who complained to me about “fairness” I think I’ve come to an epiphany that will benefit us all, even those of us who at times think life is unfair. Namely, “these are the cards you’ve been dealt.”

For example take your average black man. He is likely born into poverty, has a 73% chance of being raised by a single mom. Is likely to be heavily propagandized into feeling self-pity and “woeismeism.” And if he dares to improve himself his entire social network will mock and ridicule him for being an “Uncle Tom” or “Oreo.”

Now, imagine instead of this black man being a separate person from you that you are witnessing in the third person, you ARE THIS MAN and these are the cards you’ve been dealt in the “Poker Game of Life.”

What do you do?

If this was a run of a mill “guys night of poker” you would simply fold and wait for your next hand. The problem is there is no “next hand.” This is it. This is the ONLY hand you will ever be dealt.

And while you may bemoan all the unfairness that comes with having these lousy cards, it does not change the fact your ONLY OPTION is to play that hand the best you can.

Another example, your old Captain himself.

Certainly dealt nowhere near as bad of cards as your average young black man from the ghetto, but in one capacity of the “Poker Game of Life” I did get a bum card. I’m short.

This, as you all well know, is the equivalent of being a fat chick when it comes to dating. Unfortunately whereas being fat is a choice, being short is not. Does it do me any good to whine, complain, rage, and blame other men for having “height privilege” or scream at women for being “shallow” for not liking short guys? It only hurts me as I’m being delusional and wasting precious time. The best move is to accept this trait I was born with, and do the best I can in spite of it.

The whole point is that we are all born with inherent weaknesses. Nobody gets dealt five aces. And whereas society, our parents, government, and especially the education system has done their damnedest to force us to demand “fairness,” every single one of us needs to come to grips with the fact these are the ONLY cards we will ever be dealt, no matter how shitty. Because if you don’t, and live your life insisting on fairness that will never come, you will waste the one life you’ve been given, no matter how predisposed it was to be shitty.

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