Is Karma really what we are looking for?

We hear all the time that "karma's a bitch", I have said it, and I have hoped for it.   I think that it is true, for the most part, that what goes around comes around.  It doesn't always happen in a timely manner, it may not happen in our life time, but somewhere down deep inside I know it will one day happen.  So how do you feel when it finally does, and you get to witness it?


I have been guilty, on more than one occasion, of rejoicing in someone elses tragedy.  Yes, I am not perfect!  I can honestly say that for the most part I treat people the way I wish to be treated, but I am guilty from time to time of treating other's they way they have treated me.  How about you?


There has been a situation that has been going on in my life that has made me realize just how much I need to realize that no matter how I wrap it up, there is no excuse for what I have said and done.


Just so that you understand what I am talking about I will tell you this much.  There was a person in my life that a few years ago hurt me, more than I can express.  I have had a difficult time with it, and moving past it.  Yes, I have thought all along about karma and that she will get hers but it didn't make me feel better.  I didn't care really about how she was hurt by what she did, I just cared that she hurt me, until karma did come a bite her in the ass and then my thinking changed.  I found out that her perfect world, the one she talked endlessly about, the one that she destroyed our friendship over, was falling apart.  She had something happen in her life that brought her pain, sorrow and shame and when I heard about it I was happy!!  Yes, happier then I would have thought I would be.  I thought, "that's great, now she has finally gotten hers".  I wanted to celebrate, to shout it from the mountain tops that I had witnessed karma in action.  I wanted to rejoice in the fact that she was experiencing pain.  I took that and I told other's about what had happened to her, I talked to other people who knew her and knew how much what was happening was a total reflection on her.  I talked to people who barely knew her, I was happy to walk around, feeling proud in some way that I was vindicated, that retribution was granted me, and because of that I could then go and tell everyone what happened to her.  For some crazy reason I thought that because she had hurt me, talked to other's about me, and rarely had anything good to say gave me licence to do the same to her.  The pain she had caused me meant there were no holds bared, nothing was off limits and I had every right to rejoice in her misfortune.  Isn't that how it is supposed to work, aren't we supposed to feel freed from all of it when we see them get theirs?  I always thought so.

After spending the last month or so celebrating her difficult life circumstances, I realized that I was so off the mark it wasn't funny.  I had no right to feel happy about this, I had no reason to think it was okay that bad things were happening to this person.  I was ashamed at myself.  I gave myself all these excuses to justify my bad behaviour but all in all that is exactly what it is... bad behaviour. 

Karma may exist, I don't really know.  If you wait long enough eventually something bad will happen to all people, is it karma?  I don't think so.  What I do know for sure is that two wrongs don't make a right.

We teach our children this lesson, "just because he hit you does not make it right that you hit him back".  I have said something like that to Zeb so many times I have lost count.  We teach our kids that what we really want them to do is turn the other cheek.  We want them to learn that revenge is not for them to take, that taking the high road leads to better things.  We teach them that doing something bad back to someone else just stoops to their level and that they are better than that.  I didn't do that.  I didn't turn the other cheek, I wanted revenge, I wanted her to suffer the way I had suffered.

In getting my retribution I sunk to a level I am more ashamed of than anything I have ever done in my life.  What I did was go around and hurt another human being for no real reason.  Yes I was hurt, but that is not an excuse.  I not only hurt her, but I hurt other's along the way.  By sharing her tragedy I also shared information about an innocent party that didn't deserve my revenge.  What I essentially did was exactly what had been done to me, and that makes me so very ashamed of myself.

I have learned so much about myself in this, and  that I have serious area's of improvement when it comes to being human.  I think that I am a good person, someone who does not go around hurting people for pleasure, someone who is not really interested in gossip or sharing people's secrets.  I am a person who is honorable, however in this situation I was not at all honorable. 

My hope now is that this lesson has been learned.  That I have realized that I am not on this earth to get "paid back" for the wrongs that have been done to me.  I have learned that no one is perfect.  I will get hurt!  I will feel like I don't deserve it, but that they don't either.

People are mostly good.  They do the very best they know how to do in most circumstances.  Humans are capable of incredible love, and incredible evil, and sometimes even really good honorable people do things that they should not do, even if they think they deserve it.  We can come up with a thousand reasons for treating people badly, but there is only one reason for treating someone with kindness, forgiveness and understanding and that is that we are here on earth to bring love, not hate!