Fairness is OK
In the past, I've advocated against the word "fair" - I thought it was subjective, emotional-driven, largely arbitrary, and led to muddy unclear thinking.
I've changed my position on it. I now think the word "fair" is okay for external evaluation and communication usage.
See, "fairness" still can screw up your life, if you let it. Lots of people do petty things or self-destruct because of fairness. Or they don't ask for a promotion where they'd do well in that capacity, or they turn a deal that's great for them where they get slightly less than "fair" but still massively more than they would otherwise.
Evaluate your own life and actions based on what's best for you, not fairness. Sometimes that does mean turning things down out of principle, heuristics, or for reputation reasons. But "fairness" shouldn't be a big component of your evaluation for your best action.
It can, however, be a big part of your external evaluation and communication.
The word "fair" is a short word that contains a lot of thought and emotion. It could take a long time to try to explain your entire position, morale, momentum, standards, etc in long form.
So you say you're looking to set up a fair deal. And you evaluate whether other people are going to perceive the deal as fair, since that's important for esprit de corps.
You've still got to be careful about it. It can muddy up your thinking in a hurry. But my old 100%-cut-fairness-from-the-vocabulary position went too far - there' some potentially good usage of the word.
Subscribe to SEBASTIAN MARSHALL
Do Something
Get new posts sent to you. If you change your mind later, unsubscribe with one click.
You're a member of this community! Use the buttons on the right to vote on ths post or share it with others. Or leave a reply below.