Karma has no master, it runs itself by its own standards and hands out justice as it sees fit, and when it sees fit. Nothing you do or say will effect the WAY karma ends up working, or WHEN it comes back around. That can actually be very frustrating. I suppose my wording sounds odd because I don’t actually consider karma an entity, more of an inevitability, a law of nature if you will. What goes up must come down. E = mc2. There is no such thing as creating or deleting, only shifting of matter. If you put positivity out into the world it will find you again and same goes for negativity.
For the last handful of years, all I wanted was peace. All I wanted was to see karma stop being lazy and to do its damn job. It was shocking, hurtful and atrocious to me to see people acting so manipulatively and diabolically and seemingly get rewarded for their evilness.
I wanted to be karmically recognized for all of the hard work I put in and I wanted the people that abused their “good fortune” to get a wake-up call. I’ve put a lot of thought into that last desire and I have mixed emotions about it. There’s this stigma, “You should never wish pain upon someone just because they’ve caused YOU pain. If you do, you’re bitter, you’re negative, you’re a bad person.” I’ve come to realize though, that wanting justice is NOT the same thing as wishing pain upon someone. When I think of the people that have hurt me or screwed me or otherwise brought negativity into my life, I’m honestly not sitting here saying to myself, ‘I HOPE YOU SUFFER AS I HAVE SUFFERED.’ Rather, I wish for them that someday, they come to understand the impact they had on my life, the struggles I have gone through because of their actions, and I hope they learn enough about themselves so that they don’t treat someone else the way they treated me. I do wish for justice, but justice is not the same thing as revenge. Revenge is, “I want to hurt you the way you hurt me.” Justice is “There should be a consequence for your action.” One thing I will always, always stand by : It is NOT your right to create that consequence. Honestly, no personality trait will ever disgust me more than the arrogance to think you can punish someone for something you perceive as wrongdoing. To put it simply : Mind your own damn business and get your nose out of anyone else’s. To put it religiously for those who understand things better that way : I’m pretty sure the bible tells you that you have no business judging anyone else. No matter what way you want to look at things, religiously or just logically, it all says the same thing. Sit your ass DOWN if you even think of pointing a finger at someone else and whipping them with it. Sit. Your. Ass. DOWN.
Action is a funny word as well, because action is really just reaction. The classic question, “What came first? The chicken or the egg.” “Well, I did this because you did this.” “Well I did that because YOU did this!” And on, and on. That pretty much describes any and all ongoing conflict you have with another. You react, they react, and then you both judge reactions as actions. And its not individual actions, its a flow, its like two atoms put together, sometimes they have magnetism and sometimes they repel but they BOTH are contributing, its not ever one-sided. SCIENCE RULES. (Did I mention I ❤ Bill Nye?)
You can point a finger at someone’s choice and say “What you are doing is WRONG” or “You made a WRONG choice” but more often than not, a person will explain why they made the choice. Explanation is not the same thing is an excuse, its 100% possible to have a perfectly logical explanation for your action but still know, and acknowledge, it wasn’t a good decision. I think when you take two people in conflict and ask them what they don’t like about each other, both will often have a completely reasonable explanation as to why they don’t like the other, and its immature and self-inhibiting to view the situations as “right” and “wrong.” To sit there and say that you have NO culpability in someone getting hurt because of choices that you made is absolute and utter BS. I know that acknowledging the other person’s POV is a lot more difficult to put into practice because when you’re in conflict with someone because you get defensive, and when you get defensive, you don’t want to admit that the other persons views and feelings may be valid because you think that invalidates your own.
Guess what though? It doesn’t! You can acknowledge someone’s autonomy; the validity in their views and feelings without sacrificing your own. Just because someone has a valid point doesn’t mean yours is invalidated. Shocking, right? I look back on a lot of choices I have made over the last five years or so, and some choices that made me some enemies, I regret because I acted on impulse and didn’t think them through and/or didn’t think about how they would effect others when I made them, and other choices that made me some enemies, I stand by to this day because I felt I was speaking up for things I believed in, and I doubt there will ever come a day when I speak up in my honest voice and regret what I said, regardless of the outcome. If you want to hate me because I have the courage of my convictions, knock yourself out. My ONLY regrets are allowing others to intimidate me and influence my bad choices, and then we come back to the “reaction” thing because I know that I made the choices because of the situations I was in. I am not saying I’m not responsible for those choices. I am responsible because I allowed myself to be in certain negative situations, I didn’t stand up for myself and my beliefs enough in some situations, and I allowed myself to be intimidated to the point where I felt defensive and needed to feel less powerless. But the consequences, they are still mine to bear.
But this is where I shift from past negativity to present positivity. I went through a lot. I got sucked into a tornado of negativity and it was all around me and it felt inescapable. I am a “devout agnostic” but there were times in my tears when I literally said, “God, if you exist, STOP BEING AN A-HOLE, WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO DESERVE THIS SHIT?”
I look at how vastly different my life is right now from what it was literally only four months ago. I look at how amazing my job is (I feel weird even calling it a job because its really just something I go and do and LOVE, hanging out with amazingly kind people and cuddling animals while doing office work that I would have gladly done for no pay at all (as I have done very similar work for YEARS without seeing a dime or even a thank you gesture for my efforts, gotta love being used like that) I have basically the perfect apartment that I’ve always wanted with NO carpet (I HATE CARPET) beautiful wood floors and stainless steel appliances and a full gym in the bottom level and just, basically I feel like I live in a rich building but I’m not rich and its amazing that I can afford this and SO lucky, and I think the best part is that after being around so much negativity and unfairness for so long, I appreciate the little things in my life right now SO DAMNED MUCH. Every night I fall asleep and I’m just filled with gratitude.
And – THAT IS KARMA.
When I begged it to hurry its ass up, I had a different vision in mind. I had a different idea of how it would finally help me out, but you can never force karma to your conscious will. The truth is that what I have right now is twice as good as what I originally wanted for years. This isn’t about outer validation or recognition, its about having a FUTURE, being somewhere you truly belong, having people in your daily life who see your strengths and potential and make a point to let you know you are valued.
To put it in the best visual way that I can, I felt like I was being attacked by a wolf pack. Literally. As in one or two people started going after me, and the rest of their pack, without really even knowing why or having any way to have any kind of accurate perception of me themselves, just joined in the persecution because thats psychology and human nature. This wolf pack cornered me to the edge of a cliff, and I was just stuck there teetering on the edge. Occasionally one would step forward and knish their teeth and I would grab a rock and toss it at him. Then it was “SEE SHE’S A BITCH SHE JUST THREW A ROCK AT YOU” with no willing insight into the fact that they were putting me in a position where impulsive, defensive actions sometimes happened out of panic and fear. And finally, after being in survival mode and surrounded by this negativity and senseless persecution for so long, I finally just gave in/gave up. I threw my arms out, closed my eyes, said “fuck it”, gave up on everything I was trying to hold on to at the time and fell off the cliff.
This is where karma kicks in, because the wolf pack that was trying to force me off the cliff in the first place assumed that I would fall into lava and burn up, or that I would just hit the cold hard ground and immediately get my insides crushed. But you know what? I fell onto a soft, comfy pillow that was floating in a fucking SWIMMING POOL OF GOLD. How else could you possibly explain the amazing things that have practically fell into my lap after finally giving the F up? A job that I couldn’t love more if I tried in so many aspects, the job itself, bosses that let us know that we’re valued every single day in big ways and in small ways, coworkers that never say a single negative thing about anyone, and the job itself is doing something so positive and helpful to the world, I am just so grateful I don’t even have words. A gorgeous downtown apartment that it seems ridiculous that I can even afford because its so nice, and friends that are fun, kind, and encouraging with minds of their own who don’t look to outer influences to feel better about themselves and who don’t need to judge others or put them down to feel better about themselves, either. Its amazing how I got so depressed that I honestly didn’t think these things existed anymore, but they came to me as soon as I just let go of what I thought I wanted.
“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.” SO DAMN TRUE.
It take time to move past the hurt and pain some people have caused you. I’ve been able to move past certain people’s negative influence on me, and I’m still working on others. But in general, all of these people who wanted so badly for me to fall off of a cliff (I quote one girl whom I never did a thing in the world to other than calling her out on her using me and stealing from me – as saying “If she killed herself, I wouldn’t feel one bit bad at all”) you got your wish – but the swimming pool of gold I fell into? Its all mine. And I’m going to appreciate and enjoy every minute of being in a world where hard work is valued, where people are kind and accepting of one another, encouraging of individuality, where people have their own minds and don’t drink cult cool-aid, and where I can finally have the mindset and the support around me to do what I’m good at, and what I love.
Karma gifted me in the best way possible. I didn’t foresee all of this, or even realize this was what I wanted or what would make me happy until it practically fell into my lap. And all I had to do was just say ENOUGH to how I was treated and turn my back on anyone who ever used me, hurt me, took advantage of me, or was tangled up in ANYTHING at all that lead to me feeling negatively. I made that ONE decision and everything else literally just fell into place.
What I went through to get to this point, its okay because its made me appreciate every tiny little moment of kindness, of encouragement, of good fortune and of justice that I finally get to see happening; not by punishing the people who wronged me (although I personally feel like their self-hatred is punishment enough) but by improving MY life and giving me the chance to be happy in a way where no one ever has the capability of taking this away from me.
Karma does what it wants, when it wants and how it wants, and my only advice to anyone waiting for it to kick in and pacing in frustration is to give up and just be open to what you deserve. If you know you’ve been wronged, if you know you deserve better, it will happen for you. If you’ve participated in bullying/hurting/degrading/devaluing other people, well, that’ll come back on you in whatever way karma sees fit – I feel like I see it most often in the form of self-hatred because self-hatred is what leads to judging others, its to avoid admitting that you judge yourself.
I know that some of the crap that happened to me, I had coming. I threw rocks at the wolves when they snapped at me and two wrongs don’t make a right. Hating someone who hates you doesn’t solve anything. Throwing rocks at someone who snaps their teeth at you just provokes them the same way their snapping provokes you and it becomes a vicious cycle where there can be no winners. Winning isn’t done by defeating the other person, winning is done by rendering the other person’s behavior toward you irrelevant to your own happiness.
To want to write and go on and on about the fact that I finally have daily joy inside of my heart is so different than needing to write every day because I’m in pain. Its also reaffirmed my identity as a writer, to know that writing is vital to my expression rather than just my expression of pain is so important.
I’m still me in happiness or in misery. I’m still the girl who will stand up for whats right, and what I believe in only now I won’t let anyone intimidate me to go about it in any way other than straight forward. If you judge me or put me down because I won’t be two-faced, get out of my life and stay gone. No room here for sneaky, manipulative, mean-spirited self-hating strugglers. I’m sorry for everyone’s pain, but I’m not anyone’s scapegoat. I’m going to continue achieving my dreams and no one and nothing is going to stop me. I’m free.
Kell Frillman - Author 