Life and Fairness

I was just daydreaming/brainstorming/musing this past week. I thought about how, if my husband and I were to somehow lose everything we own, especially wrongfully, there are avenues for help in rectifying the unfairness that we didn't deserve. But most of mankind has probably lived without such avenues for retribution. If a family living on a homestead 200 years ago in the middle of nowhere had their house burn down through an accident, there's no one to magically pay them for the inconvenience and help them get back on their feet. They had to somehow learn to deal with it and move forward with what they had instead of feeling cheating and paralyzed by the injustice.

Today, I feel fairly comfortable with the fact that there is often an "appeals" process somewhere if I'm wronged. I can appeal to the "higher ups" and likely see some form of justification made and fairness restored. But is that really what life is like, or what life is about? What lessons did my ancestors learn that I might be missing out on? How did they emotionally deal with the unfairness in life, and how did it shape their characters and personalities? Did it help them to be more patient, more forgiving, or to rely on God?

This isn't to minimize our contemporary struggles. I believe that while some challenges are harder than others, every single person you run into has problems that are hard for them. It makes me angry when I see people belittling the challenges that other people go through (example: When I say that I miss my fiance while he's gone for two weeks, don't you dare tell me that I have it easy, and that I should try going my first year of married life only seeing him on weekends, because your life is obviously so much harder than mine. Your suffering doesn't make mine any less). The circumstances we're in and challenges we face are different because everybody is a different person. I'm curious about the effects of this difference--politicized and cultured fairness over time--right now.