Thursday, September 22, 2011

Life Lessons: Karma is Weird


September is a reflective time for me. As I turn 43 this month, I started thinking about some Life Lessons I’ve learned over the years and thought I’d share them.

Whether you call it Karma or reaping what you sow, a lot of us believe that what goes around comes around. The good you do comes back to you and the evil you do returns to you as well. I’m not so sure about this.

In my life, I’ve seen a lot of people cause a lot of strife and create a lot of drama. I’ve been told that those people will get what is coming to them. In one case, I’ve been waiting for over 20 years to see the Karmic boomerang come back around.

On the other hand, I’ve seen people be giving and loving and caring and they are still struggling. What gives?

I think, for most of my life, I’ve taken a superficial view of Karma. If someone cheated, then Karma means at some point someone will cheat on them. If someone lied or stole, then at some point they would be lied to or be the victim of some thief. I’ve had sort of an eye-for-an-eye view of it.

I now believe that while Karma can work like that, a lot of time it works on a deeper level, more stealth-like. The cheater might not be cheated on, but he or she will always be looking over their shoulder, unable to trust. Likewise the liar and the thief also live in a prison of their own creation afraid that someone will do to them what they have done to so many others.

The people who strive to do the right thing are rewarded with a clearer conscience and the capacity for strong and solid relationships. They can sleep at night without watching their back every few minutes.

Karma is not a guarantee that we’ll be rewarded with exactly what we want if we do the right thing or a guarantee that we’ll face immediate or even delayed punishment for some of our wrongs. We do reap what we sow but not always in the ways we expect.

Karma is weird.

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