Why Life Feels Unfair: A Spiritual Take on Balance, Boundaries, and Becoming

We are taught early to seek fairness, as if the world runs on equal measure. Do good, and good will return. Offer kindness, and it will be returned in kind. We chase this invisible symmetry like a rhythm we’re meant to dance in, and when the beat slips, when something feels off, we call it unfair. We blame the world, or power, or systems. But sometimes the imbalance isn’t out there. It’s in what we hold back.

We think fairness lives in rules, in being right, in keeping peace. But much of what we call peace is just unspoken tension. Quiet avoidance. We soften our words to be palatable. We laugh when something stings. We lower our voice when it should rise. Not because we don’t see the wrong, but because we fear what happens if we name it. We hold ourselves back. Not for their sake, but because deep down, we don’t yet trust that our truth will be met with love.

When we do not trust ourselves, we look at others through that same lens. Every silence feels loaded. Every misstep, betrayal. We become hyper-aware of how people behave, not because they are dangerous, but because we’ve not yet found the safety within. The fear isn’t about them. It’s about what we do with discomfort. What we do with the parts of ourselves that don’t always match who we want to be.

We forget that it was never about being perfect, or good, or always getting it right. It was about being whole. And wholeness isn’t symmetrical. It’s flawed. It’s messy. It breathes in contradictions. It allows you to both love someone and feel hurt by them. It allows you to rest even when the world says hustle. It allows you to say no without apology, yes without proof.

There’s a line I once read that never left me. You believe in grace not when you get what you want, but when you don’t, and you still know it was God.

That’s the depth of trust we’ve lost. We want to predict. We want certainty. We want to plan our growth and our grief and our healing. But life moves in tides, not straight lines. And we’ve forgotten how to float.

Fairness, you see, isn’t about making life predictable. It’s not about rigid roles or defined reactions. It’s not about boundaries that punish or protect. It’s about being so fluid in who you are that truth can breathe around you.

We see things as love or fear, but don’t realise we are always choosing one. Love is not romance or ease. It is not soft music and warm lights. It is presence. It is honesty. It is allowing what is, instead of trying to force what should be. Love is when you hold your boundaries and still keep your heart open. When you stop fixing others because you’ve started tending to yourself.

You might look at your long day and feel exhausted, or you might notice the strength it took to carry it. You might recall a fight and replay everything they did wrong, or you might turn inward and ask why that particular wound still bleeds. There is always a choice to look again.

We talk of boundaries, of clarity, of being consistent. But what if freedom lives in our willingness to change, to soften, to be moved? Not erratic, not unstable. Just real. Just fluid. Just willing to be shaped by truth as it arrives.

Because when you are rooted in love, not performance, honesty becomes natural. It flows from you, not as a weapon but as a mirror. Not to prove a point, but to stay in integrity. You do not need to convince. You just live it.

And then you understand. It was never between you and them. The fairness you seek, the grace you crave, the truth you hold, all of it is part of your dialogue with the Divine.

He sees the restraint you practiced. The compassion you offered. The burdens you didn’t explain but still carried with grace. He sees the moments no one else does.

This is where fairness lives. Not in outcomes. But in alignment.

And this is where peace begins. When you no longer need the world to match you, because you have chosen to match your soul.