Fit, Fitness and Fairness
We meet needs and cultivate mattering through fit, fitness and fairness. Fit is about the right match between person and environment. The context of life -- family, work, community -- has to be responsive to human needs, and human beings need to adjust to the context. If you are neat, you want to live and work with folks who pick up after themselves. If you want to survive in Miami, you want to live near work, and avoid the lunatics behind the wheel.
Life is a dance between what we want and possess and what the context can offer. Sometimes we have to change the environment to make it more in line with human needs. For example, we can make it more nurturing and accepting. Sometimes we have to change human tendencies -- selfishness, aggressiveness -- to maximize fit with the situation. Families and workplaces that provide caring and respect foster mattering. Settings that ignore you create alienation.
Is there a good fit between your needs and aspirations and your social environment? Are you surrounded by supportive or judgmental people? Are there lots of barriers for you to achieve your goals? Have you thought of changing the environment to improve your life? I made some major changes in my life to obtain a better fit between my needs and living conditions. To begin with, I moved countries four times, which sounds crazy, but it’s true. I grew up in Argentina under a dictatorship that was both brutal and anti-Semitic. Terrible fit, especially if you opposed the military dictatorship and were Jewish, like me: two for two. I moved to Israel when I was a teenager. After nine years there Ora and I wanted to pursue advanced degrees in Canada, which we thought would present better opportunities for us. After fifteen wonderful years in Canada, the winter started getting to us. Ora, who uses a wheelchair, was restricted by the constant presence of snow and slush. There were many wonderful things about Canada, but weather was not one of them. In pursuit of better weather, we moved to Australia. We had three amazing years in Melbourne, but my occupational fit was not great, so we moved to the United States.
Fitness, in turn, is about acquiring skills to improve the fit with the environment. We need skills to promote meaning and mattering. The more we refine them, the higher the chances that we will matter to ourselves and to others. To be clear, fitness is not just about physical well-being; far from it. Fitness refers to the entire set of skills we should have to promote well-being in all domains of life. We can pursue fitness not just in physical, but also in interpersonal, psychological and occupational well-being. To succeed in the world of work we need to refine our attitude and aptitude. These are things we can work on.
Good listening is an acquired skill, as is teamwork. Both are part of caring and respect. These have to do with attitude. Writing computer code, cutting hair, or doing hip replacements are a matter of aptitude. They all can be learned. Saving money is also a skill. The same can be said for avoiding junk food. These are all things we can learn.
Fitness is a necessary but insufficient condition for well-being. The right fit between person and environment requires fitness but also fairness. Fairness relates to the role of justice in mattering and well-being. If injustice prevails, improving our fitness may not be enough. If you find yourself in a domestic abuse situation, improving your communication skills may not stop the abuse. You may be the greatest communicator on earth, but this may not prevent a physically abusive partner from acting violently. This is a profound lack of fairness. Without fairness, you can’t achieve wellness.
Fairness, or lack thereof, can take place in relationships, families, workplaces, or the community. Women are still getting paid less than men for similar work. People with disabilities still encounter barriers. Children are abused by ill-prepared parents. Minorities are discriminated against due to racism, bias, and stigma. Poor children, due to no fault of their own, go hungry. Workers are exploited by callous employers. These are injustices afflicting large parts of the population, worldwide.
We should learn how to detect signs of unfair treatment. Bullying does not have to be overt to be harmful. Insidious ways can be just as damaging to our soul. Harassment can take many forms: sexual, psychological, social. Once we learn how to recognize these transgressions, we can improve our fitness to enhance fairness. Being assertive is part of interpersonal and psychological fitness. To achieve an optimal fit between person and environment we need fitness and fairness.
Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky is an award-winning academic and author. He is also a coach, consultant and a researcher. His latest book, co-authored with his wife, Dr. Ora Prilleltensky, is How People Matter: Why it Affects Health, Happiness, Love, Work, and Society (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Press here to order.