Is this a cautionary tale to apply to our own lives

or a statement of rejoice to apply to the lives of 'others'

or maybe a bit of both?

In my life, I have had a strong underlying world view that what goes around comes around, it ties in heavily with another foundational value of treating others in the manner at least as well as what I would want me or a loved one to be treated

I believe it strongly. so when I see or hear of grown people (not kids, who I give the benefit of still growing and developing their brain) doing awful things, my instinct is disgust, but my afterthought is actually empathy for either what made them so miserable or for what miserable thing they will have coming.


Do you believe what goes around comes around? Is it any inspiration on your conscious and sense of right and wrong? Do you rejoice in such an idea or merely believe it is how it is?


, if you believe it at all, that is.

So they say ...

But I seen different, I always treat people with all due respect, got treated like dirt by the ex wife and her family though

that happens too, sorry to hear it.

Agreed, in my karma poem I tried to say how I feel about this. I feel strongly, "what goes around comes around" is real and if we learn this, maybe the world will be a better place.

Looking back at my life, I can see some things I have done and what happened after proves this theory to me.

Other times, like larsi, I treat others like I want to be treated and they take my kindness as weakness.

I can only hope I get it back someday...

The world is sad enough as it is without the lunacy of killing each other over it.

No, I don’t take pleasure when people who are problematic to me suffer. It makes me want to throw up.

Tysm for your post. I can well understand you.

But as long as there is people, who take your kindness for granted, and then use it against you, it will take decades until nice people like us get some kind of reward. Never gonna give up though.

Basically, yer talkin bout Karma.

Most of my working life, I subscribed to Karma.
I had a strong aversion to treating people badly or being unfair to others.

I think this had a lot to do with the religion I was taught.
I expected God to punish me for my sins.

Now I realize this isn't reality.
People do have things go wrong for them, even when they don't treat others badly.
People can treat others badly and have things go right for them constantly.

Some people are born with a silver spoon.
Some people do have the worst of luck.

It nearly always depends upon the circumstances and the options available to them.
Some people have a knack for timing and planning where others really suck at it.

What is important to Karma is how you interpret the world around you.
If you concentrate on the bad things that happen in your life you start to expect bad things in your life.
Good things still happen, they just don't have the focus.

More often than not, when bad things happen to people it is a result of poor choices.

I've thought about this concept a lot. Between the unending barrage of Judeo-Christian insistence on a vengeful or at least very picky all-powerful being regulating everything, and the no-god-required version of the same thing that Karma always seemed to me to be, I got a lot of encouragement to believe in natural balance.

But it just doesn't ring true to me. It's not just that all sorts of people abused me and others and got away it. And a very long time ago, I noodled through that being good and nice to others is a lie, if you do it to try to cause them to be good and nice to you in return.

Perhaps my studies of history and science and business and a life of repairing stuff for a living did the trick. I learned that there ARE consequences to any action or choice, but those consequences are rarely simple and straightforward.

The most impressive natural consequence for me, I've only understood lately, is that I know things. Once you know things, unless you suffer brain damage, you can't UNKNOW them again. Once you know that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the like aren't real, all sorts of things are permanently different in your life. Once someone cheats on you and leaves after declaring forever love, it's no longer possible to take declarations about future affection seriously.

I imagine that when you lie to get what you want from someone, you know forever that what you did get, was based on the lies. That it wasn't real, except in a rather nasty "conquest" kind of way. Some people seem to be just fine with that knowledge, some aren't.

Anyway, all that means, is that I don't believe in Karma, just consequences. And not all consequences are "fair and just."

I prefer to say you reap what you sow. I wish no havoc on anyone.

But I do see where some people get just that.

I believe in free will is an illusion, though a very good and useful one. Consider a deterministic world where if everything were known, the rest of history could be predicted exactly as it would happen. That means sin is also an illusion And can better be defined as evil that one identifies as responsible for. So why does God allow evil to exist? Why does he not just kill the devil? The answer is that if he did, there would be no life. Everything would be as it should be, and there would be no meaning. Consciousness may still exist, but there would be no consciousness of good and evil.

Switch back to the free will viewpoint: Karma is the real truth about the way things should be.

Sorry I don't believe it I've seen people do evil and live life better then most. I always hear in the end karma will get them it's not true.

The whole concept of Karma, "reap what you sow", life is "fair and just" or "biased and unjust", is a delusion that is taught early on and reinforced without example all thru our lives. A lot of people exercise that discipline without even realizing it.

Its like miracles. You have to believe them to see them and what one persons sees, may not be what other people see. You might see someone getting Karmic justice but someone else might see how lucky that person is.

You might see someone that treats others badly as having a rough go at it but others may not see that. They, themselves might not see it that way.
Its all subject to interpretation.
Its all relative to the values each of us adopt.

What can and does happen...a lot, is that people feel they've received unjust treatment from someone and they actually DO SOMETHING to make that person pay. Either by action or inaction.
Its vindictiveness by reflex.

Sure, if it's a shortcut way of saying "risk management matters," or, "be mindful of consequences."


It can be, if that's what you want it to be.
That's the great thing about general aphorisms.
Kind of like those stories about the faith healer rain preacher things. Where shysters pass the collection plate while everyone sits and prays for rain during a drought, if it doesn't rain, well, somebody isn't praying hard enough, if it does rain well golly gee prayer works!

General aphorisms can be used to prove whatever you want to believe as you control what is relevant in defining them from the general.


If you want to be a waffler, sure.


Yes and no and maybe? It's too vague without a lot of context.


Inspirational? No. But I do enjoy schadenfreude. It's why I used to watch a lot of America's Funniest Home Videos, and thought Jim's pranks on Dwight were the best part of The Office.


Neither.

I really like instant Karma. One day I was working on one of my rental
properties. I had ridden a bicycle there. Some guy stole my bike I
seen him and I yelled. He turned around to look at me. When he did
a bungee strap got caught in the spokes and stopped the bike. He
went over the handle bars and wiped out. I got my bike back and
he got what he deserved.

Yep.
I've been done dirty by people, and they are still living the life of Riley/ the high life...so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There is positive karma, negative karma, and terrifying and confusing karma.

The "everything happens for a reason" is messed up, things just happen, to good people and bad, I don't rejoice the misery of others and I don't associate the reasons of their hardship to past deeds. things just happen.


I try to treat people the way they want to be treated. not how I want to be treated.

That's an interesting response! Many think of karma as a bad thing !

Several times I've seen karma come upon people who messed with me.

Truth wins.

I can definitely relate to that Lars.