The Futility of Fretting Over Fairness

Mitch Arnold • September 22, 2024

Recently, I was blessed with the opportunity to discuss the topic of fairness with two older men who have suddenly come face-to-face life’s occasionally unfair nature. Both are in their mid seventies, and each is living a retirement that is not what he prepared for, imagined or seemingly deserved.


Because both had worked hard and saved responsibly for their retirement, money isn’t an issue for them. Similarly, both had been physically active, exercised regularly and applied the same discipline to their bodies as they did to their retirement savings. One had even run several marathons! Unfortunately, those efforts didn’t prevent them from being stricken with neurological disorders that severely impact their mobility and ability to perform simple daily tasks.


Neither did anything to induce their physical struggles. In fact, they did everything they could to enjoy physical health well into their later years; yet, that was taken from them. It’s like obeying the speed limit, but getting a ticket, when everyone else speeds past you. It just isn’t fair.


Fairness is something we all expect, but don’t always get. Sure, a lucky break or two is welcome, but we don’t expect luck. We do expect fairness, and it stings when it is taken from us. Unfortunately, when this happens, there is little that we can do about it.


When both of these guys retired, because their physical abilities far exceeded those of their peers, their initial retirement years went almost exactly like they had planned. They continued to travel, golf and exercise regularly, never envisioning what was about to happen. Why would they? They had sacrificed, and had earned the lifestyle that they were enjoying.


As is my nature, after listening to their struggles, I tried to paint silver linings in the clouds that hung over their heads, and encouraged them to look at the bright side of things. Both told me that they admired how I was able to stay positive in the face of adversity, but that they weren’t there yet. They haven’t yet been able to give up on fairness.


Living with significant physical challenges for more than 50 years has taught me that it’s futile to fret over fairness. Put simply, we don’t get to decide what we deserve. We can live perfect lives, follow all the rules and check off all the boxes of virtue, and bad things can still happen.


What we do get to decide are our attitudes and how we approach our challenges when bad things happen. We also need to realize that the energy that we spend fretting over fairness is better directed toward improving our situations. The US Navy SEALs know this, and incorporate it into their training.


In his New York Times bestseller, “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10,” retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell recounts an experience in his SEAL “Hell Week” when one of the trainers randomly selected a trainee and completely trashed the trainee’s quarters when he was out training. This poor trainee had experienced more than 20 straight hours of grueling physical tests, and another 20-plus hours awaited after a couple of hours of sleep.


Instead of sleep that night, the trainee had to restore order to his room, though its trashed condition was no fault of his own, before inspection in just two short hours. Imagine the injustice he must have felt. A mentally weak person, under such extreme physical and mental exhaustion, and experiencing such extreme injustice, would have lashed out or simply collapsed. A SEAL can’t do that. If someone makes a terrible mistake on a mission or the enemy foils a near-perfect plan, a SEAL can’t spend time and mental resources being angry at the injustice and feeling sorry for himself. Doing so would get him, and likely others, killed.



Likewise, when things are tough for us, and we are angry because fairness has turned its back on us, we need to summon whatever mental toughness we have in order to resist the urge to feel sorry for ourselves. Only when we quit fretting over fairness can we focus on improving our situations.

Live – Love – Repeat

By Mitch Arnold • April 6, 2025
I lost a close friend to cancer last month, and though sadness will always linger, it’s overshadowed by the gratitude I have for his friendship. Yes, his early death seemed unfair, unusually cruel and senseless, but his approach to life, especially during the dire situation of his last months, was nothing short of inspiring. Jamie was only 47, which is about eight years younger than me. He was a husband and father of three young girls who have yet to reach high school. He was also an integral part of a very close and loving family. Because he was one of those guys who made the world a better place everywhere he went, his network of friends was massive. Always a positive and cheerful person, he became even more so after his stage four cancer diagnosis. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when he called me with that crushing news, on a Sunday afternoon, a little more than six months ago. While I was shocked, he was remarkably upbeat. He said that he felt good, and that he had a plan to attack the cancer. “I’ll be OK,” he reassured me, before hanging up. Still, I called him the next day. I had to make sure that he was really OK and to reassure myself that I was doing everything I could do as a friend. “Just pray,” he said, when I asked him if there was any way that I could help. He went on to tell me how he had begun to embrace religion, even before his diagnosis, and that a priest was helping him sort out his emotions and stay positive. Also on his side were all of the people – friends and family alike – who loved him. He said that so many people were praying for him and doing nice things for his family that it was almost overwhelming, but that he appreciated each and every one. He told me that he could feel the effects of all of those prayers, and that it was helping. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to recover, and cancer won, which left many of us sad and searching for answers. My initial emotions were heavy on the frustration and sadness of losing a friend way too early, but the more that I thought about Jamie, the less that I thought about his final battle. Eventually, I focused less on his death and more on his life. Jamie’s time with us was full of life and love, and cancer shined a huge spotlight on that. Even during that challenging time, he was the same cheerful person who was more interested in the people around him than he was of his own struggles. As we gathered to celebrate his life, there were smiles and laughter among the tears. Because he lived so fully and loved so deeply, we all had happy stories to tell and memories to embrace. Jamie showed me many things through our years of friendship. First and foremost, he showed me that it’s important to live every day to its fullest. No matter what he was doing, he was doing it with a smile and genuine enthusiasm. He seized every possible opportunity to enjoy life, even during those hard months at the end. Second, he showed me the power of love. He cared deeply about his friends and family, and he not only said it, but he showed it too. That love was reciprocated, especially when the end was near.  Jamie set a standard that we should all aspire to. If we can treat every day as a gift to be treasured, and seize every opportunity to show love to those around us, we can make the world around us a better place, just like Jamie did.

The Importance of Imagining Brighter Days

By Mitch Arnold • March 2, 2025
Nebraskans experienced what seemed like an entire winter in two weeks last month. Those, like me, who have been around for decades of Nebraska winters recognize that winter can be much harsher and last a lot longer, but for those two weeks, winter misery prevailed.  Then, it suddenly changed. In just a few days, we went from sub-zero overnight temperatures to temperatures in the sixties. Many areas experienced 70-plus temperature changes from one week to the next. The change was remarkable, and it not only melted the snow and ice, it also quickly erased our memories of the misery we felt just days before. Life is often like that. We can get so bogged down in difficult times that we can’t even imagine brighter days. Then, when brighter days happen, our memories mercifully tamp out the misery. The challenge is to resist unhappiness and frustration during trying times, and to remind ourselves that brighter days are ahead. It’s an exercise in hope, and one that’s crucial to our happiness, especially when things are not working out the way that we want them to. Amid the miserable weather of those two weeks, while the snow and ice kept me homebound, I slipped and fell when getting out of the shower. That left me with a diagonal slash across my back, sprained finger and deep bruising on my right hip and foot. Fortunately, no emergency room visit was needed this time, and I was able to continue on with my day and week, albeit much sorer and slower than usual. The worst of the injuries happened to my already weak right side, and resulted in that leg being much tighter than it normally is, which made getting around even more challenging than it already was. As always, I don’t share these challenges looking for sympathy. Rather, I want to acknowledge the occasional suffering that happens behind the scenes for all of us. Most of us try to put on a brave face and keep our problems behind closed doors, but everyone endures tough times at one time or another. It’s during those times that we need to find hope and optimism, and the best way to find hope and optimism is to focus on brighter days ahead. Like the weather, our fortunes can quickly change. I focused on that as ice and injury kept me homebound. I’ve been injured before and stuck at home by weather before, but rarely at the same time. In fact, the timing was quite convenient. Since the weather was already keeping me in, I could use that time to heal. Admittedly, those days were not without frustration and sadness, but I fought off those feelings with hope and optimism. Hope and optimism are almost always more elusive during difficult times, when we need them the most. That’s why we must make a concerted effort to summon them. If we don’t, we risk unnecessarily prolonging misery. As the weather improved, so did my body, like it had hundreds of times before. Before long, I was back doing the things I normally do, and my confidence level inched forward, as I proved to myself that I could survive another challenge and the brighter days I imagined came to be. If you are going through a difficult time, remind yourself that tough times never last, and that brighter days are ahead. If you do that enough, it becomes a defense mechanism that you can refine and use each time your days darken.
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