Justice does not exist. It never has, and it never will – Dr Wayne W. Dyer
NIDHI AND PRIYA were bosom pals, both interns at a well-known media house. They had joined the organisation four months apart, were in the same team and worked well. Nidhi was the more gifted and harder-working one, but she was shy and stayed in the shadows. Priya was sociable and a natural at playing office games; she also knew how to sell herself. So, when the appraisal season came, Nidhi found that Priya had been given a plum promotion and a sweet increment. And that she had fallen by the wayside.
Would you call that fair? Was there justice in their boss’s decision?
Justice a myth?
If you ask American psychiatrist Dr Wayne W. Dyer for his opinion, he would say that justice is a mythological concept, it does not exist. We are conditioned to looking for fair play in everything, so we feel frustrated and annoyed when unpleasant things happen. But this is what happens all the time – the world is set up in such a way that things cannot be fair.
“Robins eat worms. That’s not fair to the worms. Spiders eat flies. That’s not fair to the flies…. You only have to look at nature to realize that there is no justice in the world. Tornadoes, floods, tidal waves, draughts are all unfair. It is a mythological concept, this justice business. The world and the people in it go on being unfair every day. You can choose to be happy or unhappy, but it has nothing to do with the lack of justice you see around you,” writes Dr Dyer in his 1976 bestseller, Your Erroneous Zones.
“This is not a sour view of humanity and the world, but rather an accurate report of what the world is like…. Injustice is a constant,” he adds.
Seed of neurosis
Dr Dyer’s assertion comes as a shock to most of us whose culture and upbringing promise justice in this world. We expect fairness to be inherent in our life and in our relationships. Our search for justice is evident in some of the things we say: “It isn’t fair”, “How could you do such a thing?” or “Would I do that to you?” When we don’t find what we seek, we use the lack of justice as a reason to become unhappy.
However, there is nothing wrong in fighting for justice as long as we are not emotionally immobilised or psychologically defeated when we don’t find it.
“The demand for justice is not the neurotic behaviour,” says Dr Dyer. “It only becomes an erroneous zone when you punish yourself with a negative emotion as you fail to see evidence of the justice that you futilely demand… the self-defeating behaviour is not the demand for justice, but the immobilisation that may result from no-justice-reality.”
Don’t compare
Once the ‘It’s not fair’ refrain enters our personal relationships, it stalls effective communication. A woman might, for instance, feel it’s not fair that her husband stays out every evening, leaving her to look after the children. Someone like Nidhi might resent not being given a promotion, causing a strain in her relationship with Priya.
In both cases, what is happening is that X is comparing herself to Y. Questions like “I don’t get to do that, why should you?” or “It’s not fair for you to have more than I” are playing on X’s mind. This means X is determining what is good for her on the basis of Y’s behaviour. Effectively, Y – not X — is in charge of X’s emotions.
“If you are upset because of not being able to do something that someone else has done, then you’ve given them control over you. Whenever you compare yourself to anyone else, you are playing the ‘It’s not fair’ game, and shifting from self-reliance to other-directed external thinking,” writes Dr Dyer.
Dead end
In the case of Judy, the woman who resented being stuck with the children, her marriage ran on a tally sheet, says Dr Dyer. “One for you, one for me. Everything must be fair. If I act this way, you must act the same way.”
“Judy’s search for justice was a neurotic dead end. She was assessing her husband’s behaviour on the basis of her own and her happiness on the basis of her husband’s behaviour,” he writes. The only way her marriage would’ve improved was if she stopped keeping track of every little thing her husband did and went after what she wanted without trying to match up.
Change your focus
“Fairness is an external concept – a way of avoiding taking charge of your own life. Instead of thinking of anything as being unfair, you can decide what you really want and then set about devising strategies to attain it, independent of what anyone else in the world wants or does,” writes Dr Dyer.
“You’ll need to eliminate the other-references, and throw away the binoculars that focus on what others are doing. Some people work less and get more money. Others get promoted out of favouritism, when you have the ability…. But if you focus on yourself rather than compare yourself to others, then you will have no opportunity to upset yourself with the lack of equality you observe. The backdrop for virtually all neuroses is making others’ behaviour more significant than your own.”
COMING UP NEXT: Common instances of ‘I demand justice’ behaviour, their psychological payoffs and strategies to overcome them