How to Deal with Unfair Treatment and Decisions

Social Injustice Examples and Situations

It’s really pathetic to see people trying to play God with your life!!!  They love being in control of whether you get a particular job or contract; get to leave work on time; get to keep your job; get a promotion or an award; get a raise in pay; get to go on vacation leave; get to go on study leave; get a loan; get to rent an apartment or buy a home in a particular area; get a fair trial or judgment in court...and the list goes on and on. The broad term for all of this is social injustice which can happen at both the individual and group levels.

All the time that they are “playing God” with their “power cards”, I wonder if they ever stop to think that in that very moment, they can lose their privileged position or just simply drop dead! Then all of their plans and power pronouncements will come to nothing, like that rich man in the Holy Bible to whom God said, “You fool! This very night you will have to give up your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?” (Luke 12:20).

The focus of this blog post will be on social injustice at the individual level since it is easier to fix because it is within your sphere of control. This is especially important if you are coping with injustice that you have no power or influence to remove.

Space is limited in this blog post to share with you the countless times in my life that I have had to deal with social injustice at work and otherwise.  When I was younger, I used to be extremely upset by the unfairness of it all. In my younger years, my dad’s soothingly wise words provided me with the necessary grounding to wait on God to do my fighting for me. He would always tell me, in patois, “What is yours, is yours!”.  However, as I matured in age and wisdom, my strengthened relationship with God took the place of my dad (may his soul rest in eternal peace) and steadied my heart whenever I had to deal with unfairness at work or in other situations.

Maybe you’ve been continuously passed up for a promotion that even a blind person can see you deserve. Or a much less competent person was given a job, position or contract for which you were clearly the best candidate. Or you were dismissed from your job for no plausible reason. Or you did not get a salary increase because of a clearly unfair performance appraisal. Or you did not receive a fair court trial, get a fair judgment or compensation. Or you are being discriminated against because of your gender, nationality, race, language, personality, religion, etc. Whatever the injustice is that you are facing right now in your life, it may have been going on for so long that you are beginning to feel that you cannot stomach it any longer or go on anymore. You may be asking yourself the question, “How do I continue to cope with this injustice?”

Well, one thing is true the longer you live – life is sometimes unfair! You will face unfair treatment, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, injustice or be on the receiving end of an unfair, partial or biased decision at one time or another in your lifetime. However, all is not lost.

Let me share with you three super effective and proven ways to deal with injustice in any area of your life. Like a skilled chess player, you need to make these wise countermoves that will allow you to bypass or eliminate your nemesis and open up new and even better opportunities before you.

In this blog post, I will show you how you can use those countermoves to effectively deal with whatever unfair or unjust decision that has been made with respect to you or whatever unfair treatment that you have suffered in any place, situation or matter (home, school, business, job, promotion, contract, award, salary increase, laws, policies, court judgment, family, etc.).

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Coping Strategies for Dealing with Injustice

Countermove No. 1 – Pray and Wait on God

Believe me when I tell you that this apparent ‘Do Nothing’ strategy really does work. This is because like Shylock in William Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’, when we try to exact vengeance on others ourselves, it is often difficult for us to take exactly that ‘one pound of flesh’ in revenge in order to satisfy our clamour for justice. Our justice is no comparison with God’s justice! When God delivers justice, it is ALWAYS perfect! - not too little and not too much.

However, while you wait on God you must exercise patience which is, indeed, a virtue. We always want justice to be served quickly for injustices that we have suffered. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes longer than we want or expect. It may take days, weeks, months or even years! In Daniel 10 of the Holy Bible, Daniel learnt that God answered his prayers from the very first day that he prayed but that it took twenty-one days for his prayer to be manifested in the physical realm. Abraham waited 25 years to have his prayer for a child answered by God (see Genesis 12:1-5 and Genesis 21:5).

There’s a proverbial saying in the Caribbean, “Ants go bring news!” and by golly, in my own personal experience, those “sweet ants” always bring the juicy news of my vindication served up perfectly by God. In my own life, I waited for four years to receive the news of my vindication while praying and pouring my heart out to God. In another instance, I received vindication after 13 long years!

While praying, just talk to God like you would a friend and pour out exactly what’s on your heart and how you’re feeling about your unjust or unfair situation or decision. If you are a Christian, you can also use more formal prayers, like the Psalms in the Bible.  

Whether it is an individual or a group of persons who is being unjust, unfair or discriminatory towards you, my own experience has shown that one or more of the following things often happens to vindicate you, give you what is rightfully yours or give you justice:

a)   That individual or someone in the family, group, department, or company will eventually be unable to stomach the injustice being perpetuated against you and will be forced to speak out and or demand justice for you. 

b)  The person chosen over you for the job/promotion/contract will eventually muck up, thereby leaving no doubt in the mind of your boss, supervisor or manager about the inept and lousy decision that s/he made in promoting that person over you.

c)   The unjust person will be removed from his or her position in the natural course of events, by force, by resignation, by illness or by death.

At this point, I can still hear someone saying, “What does it matter since that unjust person still got what he or she wanted”? or “While I was waiting on God, I suffered a lot financially”.  Well, you can’t take away the pain that you endured while you were waiting on God but He can give you a double blessing for your pain, like he did for Job and Joseph, in the Holy Bible (see Job 42:10-17 and Genesis 50:15-21).

 

Countermove No. 2 - Keep Doing & Being your Best

You may have to endure one of the following ‘living arrangements’ with injustice or unfairness until it is finally stamped out – (a) Coexistence; (b) Transition; or (c) Retrospection.

a)  Co-existential Living with Injustice

Co-existence with injustice or unfairness means that there are some instances when you may have no other choice but to continue in the unjust or unfair situation for a short or unwanted long period of time. This could mean that you have to stay in your job because you need to pay your bills; stay in a relationship because of your children or because you have no immediate alternative income source.

Many people, in anger and very much hurt over the injustice meted out to them on a job where they are experiencing injustice, stop performing at their best and “hold back”, as a form of payback to the person or organization that is being unfair to them.  At first, it may seem that you are “getting back” at them and, in a self-satisfying way, receiving some level of justice. However, I assure you that the person most affected by this behavior is YOU!

In the face of injustice, although difficult, I urge you to continue performing at your very best. Not only does it make you the bigger person but it ensures that the quality of your work, contribution or output is never compromised. You see, life is such that you have to be at your best at all times in order to be ready for the next opportunity that comes your way. Otherwise, it may just happen that your subpar performance or output, during those angry times, is what you will be judged by when another great opportunity comes along.

b) Transitional Living with Injustice

If your unjust or unfair situation resulted in you being unemployed or homeless, you will undoubtedly experience hardship (financial and otherwise) as you transition out of that situation. Nonetheless, you can continue to do and be your best in your negative situation until you are able to break free or receive justice.

Do not, for one second, think that because you eventually move to another place, job, relationship or do something else that is totally different that you will never, ever again encounter injustice, prejudice, discrimination, bias or bigotry.

As long as you live among people, you have to realize that you will sometimes encounter frightened, insecure, small-minded people who are just downright mean or who think that the “pie” is not big enough for everyone; that you already have too much X; that you can’t have Y more than them, etc. 

Since such persons operate at the physical realm, they have no clue about the unlimited options and opportunities available to us in life because they erroneously think that more for you means less for them.  You can only pity them really and move on with your life. More importantly, keep reminding yourself that your current situation is temporary and that things will change for the better.

c)  Retrospective Living with Injustice

When bad things happen to us, we all have periods when our minds go into replay, thinking about what we could have done differently; why this had to happen to us; or what we would have accomplished if this bad thing hadn’t happened to us.

I have to admit that I have sometimes spent way too much time looking back, in the rear-view mirror of my life, at unfair or unjust situations that I endured. I can also proudly declare that although my mind wanders there sometimes for fleeting moments, for the most part, I live in the now and plan prayerfully for the future.

I personally want to thank all of the people who have denied me things; made unfair decisions concerning me; meted out unfair treatment to me; placed stumbling blocks in my way; and maliciously tarnished my name!  WHY???  Because in each and every situation, my God has blessed me abundantly more and beyond my wildest dreams in compensation for their injustices to me. 

I have also been privy to the mind-blowing stories of others who have had similar experiences to mine. I am also confident that, in due course, YOU will receive the deliverance and justice that you need from your unjust or unfair situation.

 

Countermove No. 3 – Learn a New Skill or Sharpen an Existing Skill

Focus all of your anger about the injustice into learning a new skill or perfecting an existing skill!  No matter how much you may know in your heart that things will eventually work together for your good, you are human. So, it is very natural for you to be angry about the blatant injustice, unfair or wrongful treatment.

Many people use age, circumstances or lack of money as an excuse for not learning new hobbies or skills. None of the aforementioned excuses, or any other excuse that you can come up with, are valid. Each one of us is blessed with a natural ability to learn, even though some of us learn faster than others. Additionally, we are more naturally inclined to learn things that we are interested in. So, choose something that you naturally love and are passionate about. Here are some truly amazing things that ordinary people taught themselves to do.

Each and every time that I have faced injustice, focusing all of my angry energy into improving myself or learning to do something fun has worked for me also.  I put all of my energy into either learning a new skill or improving an existing skill by delving deeper into a specific area that I had been meaning to look at but couldn’t seem to find the time to do. 

There is a dual benefit to be derived from this third and final countermove. You would be:

(a)  Refocusing your negative energy towards a positive purpose, thereby preventing you from wasting time ‘crying over spilt milk’. Remind yourself that the decision has already been made or judgment given and there is nothing that you can do at that point to reverse it

(b) Reskilling yourself and/or amplifying your skill sets, thereby enabling you to grasp other opportunities that will come your way in the future. 

This is a very powerful countermove because ‘Success always comes when preparation meets opportunity’ (Henry Hartman).  So, you will be preparing yourself for success with another job, promotion, contract, opportunity, relationship, etc. through your new skill, improved skill or expanded skills set.

Furthermore, experience shows that loss of a current opportunity often leads you into a new and better opportunity that may often be:

(a)   Totally unrelated to what you were doing before.  

(b)   Something for which you have a real love and passion.

(c)   More aligned to what God created you to do (i.e., your purpose in life).

My final message to you, dear reader, is that: Justice ‘seemingly’ delayed is not justice denied!  I say “seemly” because God’s timing is always perfect! Whatever opportunity that belongs to you, be assured that it will eventually find its way to the rightful owner - YOU! God will work out that unfair situation for YOUR good.

 

 

Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission from any qualifying purchases that you make through this blog post. If you purchase anything, I thank you for your support.

***Photo attribution: All photos are creative common. Special thank you to the talented artists – Chronic Joy (flickr); geralt (pixabay); and Mr-Panda (pixabay).

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Share with us, in the COMMENT section below, an unjust situation that you faced, as well as when and how you eventually received justice.

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