TL;DR
The feeling that disability or chronic illness is not fair is a valid and predictable human response - but it becomes limiting when it replaces all other internal narratives. This video introduces self fairness: a three-part framework for setting kind expectations, choosing what genuinely helps, and holding yourself accountable with compassion. The goal is not to feel at peace with an unjust situation, but to be fair to yourself within it.
Key Takeaways
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- "It's not fair" is a natural response to disability or chronic illness and does not require correction - but when it becomes a person's only internal story, it prevents forward action and reinforces helplessness.
- Kind Expectations - the first pillar of self fairness - means setting benchmarks based on current capacity rather than pre-disability or pre-illness baselines.
- Choosing What Helps - the second pillar - is the practice of identifying what genuinely supports physical and mental wellbeing, reducing what harms it, without guilt.
- Honest Check-ins - the third pillar - pair accountability with compassion: periodic reassessment of expectations that asks "why" without self-punishment, and allows revision as circumstances change.
- Self fairness does not require the external situation to feel just. It applies a consistent, compassionate standard to one's own choices and expectations regardless of what cannot be controlled.
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Introduction
Does your new or current disability sometimes overwhelms you so much that all you can think is, it's not fair? Last time it happened to me, even though I'm a lifelong disabled person, is when my puppy jumped on me and broke my hip which sent me to the hospital. I didn't know I would have to be in rehab for four months; didn't know if I could even come back to walking again. The doctor said it's gonna be months, maybe years, and all I could think when they were asking me, "So, what's your goal?" Is " it's not fair!" and you are right: why should you be disabled? Why should I be disabled and not my neighbour? It is not fair.
That feeling is a hundred percent valid, and the goal of this video is not to change your mind about whether or not your situation is fair, it's about what do we do with that feeling? How can we take that raw unfair reality and find a new kind of fair for ourselves right here, right now?
The Justice of the Situation
That moment of shock, whether you've dealt with your disability your whole life, or it's a new thing for you and you're trying to wrap your mind around it. It's a real thing. Your brain is trying to process a massive shift, and the first place it goes is, " Why me? This isn't right. I haven't done anything to deserve that" that is a completely natural and human response and I don't blame you for it. It's your mind's way of grappling with a fundamental change in your world. That feeling often comes with a fear of external unfairness too: the worry that the world outside, the systems, the people and the built environment might not be on your side anymore.
That's a valid fear to acknowledge it's real. But, here's the trap and this is where it gets important.
If we let that feeling of "it's not fair" become the only story we tell ourselves, we internalize it and it lives in our bones, it becomes something that is stopping us from using our potential.
That reality should not define how we see ourselves. We can get stuck in the injustice of it all, focusing on what we've lost or what's been taken away. But if we do that, it becomes very hard to adapt, and adapting to allow us to have a new start is what we want to do, eventually.
So the challenge is not to pretend that the unfairness doesn't exist, it's to acknowledge it without letting it become the boss of you. You are the boss. Adaptation and finding a new way to live well, it requires a different kind of focus. It requires us to switch from why this is happening to me, to, okay, this is happening. Now what can I do with it?
I wanna give you what I call three pillars of self fairness. If the situation is unfair, then we have to do whatever we can to at least be fair to ourselves. The first and maybe most important thing that we have to rethink is what you expect of yourself. I call this the pillar of kind expectations.
Back to my hospital bed. The thought "this will take months or years" is terrifying because it clashes with everything we're taught about productivity and bouncing back. Our old baseline for a good day is suddenly irrelevant. So what's a fair expectation now? This is where a simple mental trick can change everything. I want you to imagine talking to a dear friend, someone you really love, in your exact situation. They've had this injury, this illness, this diagnosis, this new limitation, and they're disappointed with themselves.
What would you expect from them on a Tuesday afternoon? Would you expect them to be cleaning the whole house? No. Would you expect them to be fully recovered? Maybe not.
In a day in a week? No. You'd probably say, Hey, it's good you got outta bed and moved a bit. That's good for you.
Hey, you managed to make yourself a meal, great. Maybe next week you're able to make two.
You'd celebrate this tiny progress. You'd be kind to your friend because you'd know their situation is not easy.
Why is it so hard to give the same grace to ourselves? We hold onto that ghost of before that version of us, the one who could do all the things, and we beat ourself up for not matching the image. The thing is that later we will discover there's still a lot we can do and we might even find new ways of doing what we did before, but we don't know just yet.
The fairest thing you can do is to meet yourself where you are, not where you think you should have been.
This means redefining what victory looks like. Victory might be simply getting to the day without a massive energy crash. It won't always be like that. These things are not small. They're legitimate. They're huge accomplishments in your context. This pillar of kindness is about giving yourself permission to set the bar where it actually hits, not on the floor, not on the ceiling where it is fair for you.
You can ask yourself, is this a kind expectation or am I trying to prove something to the ghost of my past self or to someone else?
That's the foundation of self-fairness.
The Second Pillar: Choosing What Helps
Here's the next part: actually making choices that are based on that kindness. This is about choosing what helps you adapt, what helps you be okay for now.
It's the willingness of doing what is good for you and less of what is not good for you, of what is harming you, whether it is physically or mentally.
Letting go of what harms you is not a sign of weakness. It's a profound act of self-respect and care, and ultimately wisdom when you train yourself to recognize it. But that comes later. These small, kind choices honour your current capacity.
Are you giving yourself permission to prioritise your wellbeing for now without guilt? Fairness is not about pushing through at all costs. It's about building a life that works for you, not against you.
The Third Pillar: Honest Check-Ins
Now. This is not a one-and-done thing. Your capacity will change with time. So the third pillar is about having honest check-ins with yourself. This is accountability, but with compassion, not criticism. Think back to the dear friend analogy. You wouldn't set a rigid unforgiving goal for someone that you love and never check in with them to see how it goes, right?
You'd gently ask, how is it working for you now?
You'd periodically revise your expectations as you learn more about your new normal. The goal is to avoid locking yourself into a plan that is not flexible enough. Some days are better, some days are harder, and there's still progress. It's about being flexible, but also being honest. If your competent physiotherapist asks you to do exercises and you don't do them, you have to honestly ask you why. Why not? See, this is going back to doing more of what's helpful and less of what is not.
You have to be fair when you hold yourself accountable. You have to be fair enough to be honest and fair enough to be flexible. You don't have to inspire anybody, you don't need to compare yourself with others. You are showing up for yourself.
So friend, your physical situation might never feel fully fair. I still go through times where I think mine is unfair after 48 years, but I don't always feel like that. Give yourself permission to feel and start practising self fairness, one kind choice at a time.
Q&A
Why do people with disabilities often feel like their situation is not fair?
When disability disrupts expected life trajectories, it creates a conflict between prior expectations and current reality. This activates a natural sense of personal justice - the intuitive belief that suffering should be proportionate to behavior. Because disability is not distributed based on behavior or merit, the feeling of unfairness is a predictable response to an objective disruption of identity and control. The video frames this feeling as valid, not as something to be corrected. Other external situations caused by social systems and infrastructure and construct also cause people with disability to experience exclusion. This will be the topic of another blogpost.
What is self fairness, and how does it differ from acceptance?
Self fairness is a framework for how people with disabilities or chronic illness can treat themselves with kindness, honesty, and accountability regardless of external circumstances. It differs from acceptance in that it does not require the person to feel at peace with their condition. Where acceptance is an emotional outcome, self fairness is a behavioral practice applied through three pillars: kind expectations, choosing what helps, and honest check-ins.
What are kind expectations, and why do they matter in chronic illness?
Kind expectations is the first pillar of self fairness. It refers to the practice of setting standards for oneself based on present capacity rather than pre-illness norms or external benchmarks. In chronic illness and disability, prior measures of a successful day - productivity, social output, physical performance - are frequently no longer applicable. Kind expectations replace those standards with benchmarks calibrated to current reality, reducing the gap between expectation and capacity that commonly produces self-criticism.
How is "choosing what helps" different from positive thinking in disability contexts?
Choosing what helps is the second pillar of self fairness and is a behavioral distinction rather than a cognitive one. Positive thinking frameworks ask the individual to reframe how they feel about their situation. Choosing what helps focuses instead on concrete action: identifying which habits and inputs support wellbeing and reducing those that cause physical or mental harm. It explicitly includes letting go of harmful patterns without guilt, framed in the video as an act of self-respect.
What does accountability with compassion mean for someone with a disability?
Accountability with compassion - the third pillar of self fairness - is the practice of regularly reviewing one's own progress and expectations without defaulting to self-criticism. For people with disabilities or chronic illness, physical circumstances change: energy levels, pain, and functional capacity shift significantly over time. Rigid accountability systems can amplify self-blame when targets are missed. Honest check-ins treat unmet expectations as information requiring curiosity and revision, not evidence of failure.
Is feeling like it is not fair to be disabled a problem that needs to be fixed?
The feeling that disability is unfair is not a problem requiring correction. The video distinguishes between the feeling itself - which is valid - and the risk that occurs when this feeling becomes a fixed, exclusive internal script. When "it's not fair" is the only narrative a person holds about their condition, it can prevent action and sustain helplessness. The intervention is not to eliminate the feeling, but to prevent it from becoming the entirety of the story.
Why is comparing yourself to able-bodied standards harmful when you have a chronic illness?
Applying able-bodied standards to a body or system functioning under the conditions of disability or chronic illness creates a structural mismatch. The standard was not designed for that context. When a person uses pre-disability baselines to evaluate their daily performance, they are measuring output under fundamentally different conditions with a tool calibrated for different inputs. Kind expectations, as described in the self fairness framework, address this by replacing external benchmarks with internally calibrated, condition-appropriate measures.
Etienne LeSage