Life is unfair

"Life is not fair, but unending in its capacity to change us; compassion is fair and feeling is just; and we are not responsible for all that befalls us, only for how we receive it and for how we hold each other up along the way."  Mark Nepo

There is current thought that we bring to us everything we experience by how we focus our attention and how we feel.  I think there is some truth to that.  Focus on ill health, and more ill health will be noticed to focus upon.  Conversely, focus on good health and more evidence of good health will be noticed.  But, perhaps is it egocentric to think that we have the power to bring any and all things into our lives.  I do not believe that Dwane on some level chose to experience dementia; nor did I choose a mate so that I could have the experience of caregiving someone with dementia.  Dwane does think that his years of putting himself through school pumping lead-containing gasoline might be the basis of his dementia.  That may very well be, but it does neither of us any good to regret the decision he made at that time.  He did what he needed to do to get a college education.  People did not know in those days how harmful lead was. We make the decisions that seem best in the circumstances of life based on our own resources and what is available.  Then we make the best of the consequences; those we may have foreseen and those we did not.  I like how Nepo frames it:  "we are not responsible for all that befalls us, only for how we receive it and how we hold each other up along the way."  Lovely.