Pathetic Justice

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 17, 2013

Life is always unfair—kids get sick, dogs don’t live forever, the Real Housewives supply is infinite—but how you react to unfairness is what matters. Some people who are undeniable victims of hard luck never see themselves as helpless, whereas other people feel like victims because life does not always reward good moral choices with good luck. If your luck turns bad, you have a right to hurt, but never expect good luck to reward you for being a good guy. You’ll never feel like a victim if you accept bad luck as part of a shitty, unfair world, and take pride in doing what you think is right, regardless of all the illness, injustice, and Bravo starlets who are out there.
–Dr. Lastname

I’ve been derailed for the last three years after thinking my life was moving along perfectly well. I’d worked for 15 years at a large company, starting out as a clerk, and somehow my warm personal style and hard work—it sure wasn’t my education, because I never did well in school and did just two years of college—kept getting me promoted until I was about to be regional director. I had three sons and a husband I thought I could count on. Then, suddenly, due to what almost everyone agreed was a minor, unintentional accounting error, I was fired because I technically broke company policy and a higher-up had decided to be a hard-ass. And my husband decided, just about the same time, that I was boring and he moved out. The kids are still great, but I feel stopped in my tracks and turned upside down, not just as if I’ve lost everything, but as if life has stopped playing by the rules. I’m doing a job search, but it’s hard to get into it or really take anything that seriously, other than the kids. My goal is to get back my faith in life, because I thought I was doing everything right, but then everything went totally wrong.

If Job, the guy in the Bible story who God screwed royally, basically to make the devil look stupid, was actually a bad guy, he might have had the satisfaction of knowing that his bad luck was for a good reason (besides winning a bet with Satan).

Unfortunately for everyone, he was a good person, just as I assume you are, so all the bad things that happened to him were for no reason and left him feeling he was living in a world where rules don’t count. That’s why his decision to keep on being a good guy was so remarkable and Bible-worthy.

Until several years ago, your life worked by the rules and reaped justifiable rewards, but then life did one of its horrible little twists and you were fucked for absolutely no reason, and from several directions at once. We want a world where the bad guy always gets what he deserves in the end, which reassures us that we’ll get good results if we work hard, act nice, and play by the rules. You’re living proof that life is unfair, which is a hard burden to shoulder.

What’s great is that you’re not letting the burden and bitterness get you down; you’re shook up, but still trying to find work, be a good mother, and keep the crazy bad luck of the world stop you from doing what’s important. That takes great strength of character of Biblical proportions.

No, you’ll probably never feel secure and comfortable again about nice jobs and loyal-seeming husbands. What you will do, however, is trust less and screen jobs and husbands more skeptically for their ability to be steady and honest and, if they let you down anyway, you’ll know that it’s life and not you. It’s a valuable lesson, learned the hard way, and it’s one you can share with your kids when you teach them to be good for the sake of being good, rather than because they’ll get rewarded.

So forget about your faith in life and take pride in your faith in the meaning of being a good person. Stand by that faith and you can’t go wrong, regardless of the shit life throws at you, or what god, Satan, Xenu, etc. cook up.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like my life was shattered, but I’m still whole, as are the relationships that matter most. I know I’m on the right track, even if I still feel dizzy and disoriented from the losses and reversals that have knocked me down.”

I can’t get my business to take off and it consumes so much of my life that I don’t have time for anything else. I’m good at what I’m doing—I import rare antiques—and at following up on orders and making sure my clients are satisfied. My father taught me the business and I have unusually good suppliers and a sense for what clients are looking for, but he was a consummate salesman and hustler, and I believe my taste and good service should speak for themselves. Though my company breaks even, however, I can barely afford to give myself a salary and I’m so busy responding to customers’ calls for small amounts of product that I barely have time for my kids, and none for my husband. My goal is to make a living and have good family life, instead of sacrificing everything for a company that can barely afford to pay its president.

Sometimes the marketplace won’t reward you for good customer relations and honesty. It requires more, which apparently is what you’ve got, at least in part; you have the special connections and experience to guarantee a unique product, but it doesn’t sound like you’re trumpeting the quality of your brand and engaging in the kind of self-promotion and hustle that’s required in a competitive marketplace. Rather, you’re relying on your reputation for playing by the rules to carry your business and you’re feeling screwed because the rewards are barely adequate.

While it’s always important to keep your promises, ask yourself whether you are committed to ultra-responsive service because it’s a good business model or because that’s your personality style. If it’s the latter, get coaching on putting together a more effective business plan that invests more in your touting the uniqueness of your brand and less the quality of your personal service.

Perhaps later, after your business grows, you can improve customer service. Meanwhile, however, without over-promising, you should commit your time and energy to marketing your special relationship with your brand and product, and provide good-enough but not-exceptional customer service.

You may feel uncomfortable tooting your own horn, or feel unjustifiably guilty when customers complain that you haven’t called them back immediately. If so, you can always meet with a therapist and ask why, or you can meet with a business coach and ask yourself whether your new advertising and service plan are honest and effective. If they are, and you carry through with them regardless of your discomfort, you will probably find it personally therapeutic as well as profitable.

Trying too hard to be a good guy, expecting that life will reward you, is a foolish way of denying the kind of world we really live in and leads to bitterness and cynicism. Recognizing the unfairness of the world may scare you initially, but obliges you to be realistic and assertive. It might make you uncomfortable, but better to be uneasy than to see yourself as a victim of the world’s unfairness.

STATEMENT:
“I always prided myself on acting like a good guy, but I realize I’ve also got to deal with the marketplace, and the unfairness of the world, as it is. I will retain my principles while sacrificing the good feeling I get when people feel I’ve done them a favor.”