What is Unfair?

"I now know that my own cries that life is unfair have come from the inescapable pain of living, and these cries, while understandable, have always diverted me from feeling my way through the pain of my breakage into the re-formation of my life.  I offer what has surprised me in my pain:  that life is not fair, but unending in its capacity to change us; that compassion is fair and feeling is just, and that 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

Sometimes my therapy clients will bring up the opinion that life is unfair, and I certainly have felt it sometimes in the very challenging periods of my life.  But, just as animals do not whine or complain about their lot, we, as humans, can do better in understanding that pain and challenges will occur for everyone, and that, perhaps, they serve a function.  The function of breaking us, so that we can be more then we are currently.