How this cognitive distortion impacts your life.
The Fallacy of Fairness is a cognitive distortion in which you believe that things should be fair, and if they aren’t, it’s not your fault.
If you’re someone who has the belief that life should be fair, then this article may help you understand how to think about fairness in a more realistic way.
Our society teaches us that we deserve good things from an early age, and bad things happen because of other people or outside forces beyond our control.
This causes us to feel angry when we don’t get what we want or blame others for our problems rather than taking responsibility for them ourselves.
By understanding the fallacy of fairness and how it impacts your thinking, you can begin to change your response so that instead of feeling victimized by unfair circumstances, you respond with gratitude and compassion toward yourself and others, even though life isn’t always fair.
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What is the Fallacy of Fairness?
The Fallacy of Fairness is a cognitive distortion in which you believe that things should be fair, and if they aren’t, it’s not your fault.
This fallacy does not allow for any negotiation or disagreement, leading to conflict in relationships with loved ones.
The more someone uses this cognitive distortion, the more they create a mindset that leads them on a path of anger and resentment.
This article discusses how one can identify when they might be using the fallacy of fairness and how to change their thinking pattern by understanding where it comes from and what it means for your life.
We also talk about some other biases that may come into play when considering fairness and how to negotiate the fallacy of fairness in your own life successfully.
What can I do about it?
If you see that you’re using the fallacy of fairness as a way to blame others for your problems or difficulties, then there are a few things that you can do to overcome this cognitive distortion and feel better about yourself and your life.
The best way to overcome the fallacy of fairness is to take responsibility for your own emotions and thoughts.
If you act like the things that happen to you are not your fault because they’re unfair, you won’t make any progress in overcoming them.
Instead, when something happens that doesn’t go in your favor or someone mistreats you, understand that it is because of them and not you.
The fallacy of fairness causes us to blame ourselves for things going wrong in our lives when there’s nothing we can do about them.
We try to accept what happened as a way to get through the pain, but this method does not actually work over the long term. We need to change our thoughts and behaviors if we want to be happy in the long run.
Understanding Our Biases.
There are other cognitive distortions that might come into play when you’re considering fairness or how to act fair in your life.
A cognitive distortion is something that someone believes without questioning it, causing them to distort reality and believe it is true.
We all have these types of biases, even me when I’m writing this article, but we need to be aware of them in order to overcome them and live a happier life.
A great way to get past the cognitive distortions like the fallacy of fairness is mindfulness.
By practicing mindfulness, you can catch your negative thoughts and feelings before they spiral out of control.
Once you’re able to do this, you can change your thinking pattern so that instead of feeling wronged by the world or other people, you feel grateful for what’s in front of you.
Life isn’t always fair…
The fallacy of fairness causes us to feel angry or depressed when life isn’t fair, or other people are doing better than us.
When you believe this, you’ll be less willing to change your situation because if it happened for a reason, then there’s nothing you can do about it now.
This will cause you to be more resentful and upset with your situations because they were all part of a master plan that didn’t include you being successful or happy.
The truth is, life isn’t always fair, but not everything unfair is negative.
If someone else gets something good when you don’t, use this as motivation to work hard so you can have a better life in the future.
By practicing mindfulness, you’ll be able to catch your negative thoughts and feelings before they spiral out of control.
Our minds are powerful, but we need to learn how to use this power without letting it overwhelm us or make us bitter as people because that will lead to self-destructive behaviors.
How to overcome the Fallacy of Fairness.
There is always a perceived sense of unfairness when something goes well for someone else and not for us. And here is the spot where you can begin to overcome this cognitive distortion.
Fairness is a perception that is unique to each of us. It is a subjective measurement that each of us decides upon and will not look the same between two people.
This is because each of our own unique experiences in this world has formed our own personal view of what is and is not fair.
Just because you view something as not fair does not mean the next person will view it the same way because fairness is not absolute, cut and dry, or black-and-white.
And this is why what one person may perceive as fair, another person may perceive as unfair.
But it doesn’t mean that we cannot look beyond our own subjective measures of what is fair and be able to work together to find a solution that works for both or all parties.