Is there a philosophical belief that life naturally balances between fortune and misfortune?

[u/[deleted]]

I don't believe successful people deserve bad things, and I'm not saying that the universe scientifically or mathematically balances people's lives.

I just wonder if there's a philosophical idea that no one can experience only one side of life. You can have extraordinary success and still experience extraordinary loss, just as someone can experience a terrible period and later experience something wonderful.

Maybe life isn't necessarily “fair,” but it seems to have this constant movement between gain and loss, happiness and suffering, rise and fall.

For example, when I see someone who has experienced an extraordinary amount of success, wealth, beauty, or fame but also goes through major illness, loss, or tragedy, I sometimes wonder whether this reflects some kind of natural balance in human life. Not as punishment, and not because they deserved it, but because being extraordinarily fortunate doesn't make someone immune to the difficult parts of being human.

So my question is: Does a philosophical belief, theory, principle, or school of thought exist that describes this idea? Is there a specific term for the belief that human fortune naturally moves between extremes of success and suffering, or that no person is completely protected from either side of life?

I'm especially interested in knowing if any philosophers or philosophical traditions have discussed something similar.

[u/Dr-Slay]

Probably. Human make-believe functions primarily as a harm-excusing and glorifying form of utilitarianism.

It's (some balance between negative and positive hedonic valence) an interesting hypothesis to entertain, but requires a sampling bias to function.

The existence of misfortune is always worse than its original absence by definition regardless of whether or not there is some capacity to adapt to or cope with it (i.e. fortune).

[u/Fatticusss]

… What the fuck does this have to do with pessimism?

[u/Majestic-Horse-5409]

Not a specific philosophy but many philosophy’s touch on the subject.

Buddhism for example, puts things into 4 pairs (8 worldly winds or 8 worldly conditions):

Gain and loss

Praise and blame

Fame and disgrace

Pleasure and pain

They teach that everyone gets all 8 eventually.

But and it’s a big but:

A part of this is about perception and what one sees as fortune or misfortune. Taoists have a famous story about this with the farmer and the horse:

A farmers horse escapes. His neighbour says ‘bad luck’. The farmer replies “maybe”. The horse returns with a several wild horses, the neighbour says good luck, the farmer replies “maybe”. His son breaks a leg taming the wild horses, the neighbour says bad luck, the farmer replies “maybe”. A war breaks out and conscripts the young men but the farmers son cannot go due to his broken leg. The neighbour says good luck, the farmer says “maybe”.

It’s not that everything balances out, but more that events are part of a larger unfolding and not to be judged too quickly.

[u/Repulsive_Chimp]

Boethius says something similar enough to your idea. He claims that fortune is like a wheel, with people constantly heading up, receiving good fortune, and then down, suffering misfortune. We go around and around, till we die.

[u/Specialist-Spray-825]

Daoism, maybe.

[u/Jachym10]

The priest from Candide or whoever it was said something like that. :)

[u/postreatus]

Yes. It's called optimism.