As in what goes around comes around.
I think it is. I try to be as honest, selfless and really take peoples feelings into consideration before I do things most the time. I find that when things get rough for me, I always end up okay or better of than where I first started.
But, I do see people who are very narcissistic and they seem to have great lives… keyword seem…
What do you guys think?
I similarly try to be a decent, honest chap, and reap the fairly humble reward of being generally a decent, honest chap, and making a few people slightly happier.
But I certainly don’t subscribe to any cosmic forces at play - after all, a lot of what could be described as positive/negative/good/evil is dependent on the observer and may fall into a moral grey area.
Salespeople, for one example, essentially spend their lives peddling lies (or at least exaggeration) but presumably aren’t haunted by their profession in sweat-soaked bedsheets every night, or hounded out of town, but rather well-remunerated.
What exactly do you mean by “Karma”?
I’d have to side with the idea that perception is reality.
In general, I just try to treat others as I would like to be treated. With some exception, it reciprocates, and that’s very controllable on my part, except where its not.
Well there isn’t some mystical force that doles out justice. But I think in aggregate you get back from the world what you put into it. Most people tend to have a sense of reciprocity. So if you act like a jerk to people, you will tend to get treated like a jerk.
NM
The problem is that jerks seldom consider their behavior to be “jerky”.
This, pretty much. Treating people badly tends to catch up to you over time. It doesn’t work as neatly and reliably as some magical force, but people often can and will find ways to retaliate against mistreatment. And then of course there’s the law, which to a degree is an attempt to institutionalize “karma”. Lie, cheat and steal and sooner or later guys in uniform will probably show up to punish you, even though no mystic force does.
Which won’t keep them from being retaliated against.
Ya know what? I tend to just go about my life treating others as I’d expect to be treated myself. Some people are jerks and always will be, and my actions probably won’t influence them.
Today, as I was loading groceries in my car, a guy came by pushing his empty cart and offered to return my empty cart too. I’ve done this for women, and especially women with kids in tow, but it was really strange to have a guy offer to help with my cart (since I’m a guy!).
Some random guy returned my cart today as he was returning his own. What if we all lived our lives like this?
Karma, baby.
I call it “white person karma.” The kind that has nothing to do with the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, but the kind that is supposed to provide tangible benefits if you do something nice. Or the opposite for bad things.
Reciprocation is very real. Being a nice person → people liking you → people more likely to do things for you. As to whether our actions can influence the future in a seemingly unrelated way? Probably this doesn’t happen often, but who’s saying.
It comes and goes.
Lama Marut has a nifty explanation of how he sees it working. And Lennon gets a mention.
Here is a youtube video of him talking about the same thing.
Don’t believe it in. Mainly because it seems that only self-righteous jerks do.
“I’m good and honest and kind to people, and look at how swell my life is!”
Well, what do those people say when life throws them a curveball? Do they ever say, “Hmm, I shouldn’t have flown through the tollbooth that time.” No. It’s always the other guy who gets what he deserves.
A genuine belief in karma promotes jerkery, IMHO. Think about it. Why would you help someone if you think they deserve their plight? It also provides a selfish ulterior motive to simply doing the right thing. Do the right thing because that’s what you want to do–not because you think there’s something in it for you.
Karma is just a half-assed way for people to comfort themselves with the notion that there’s some meaning to the universe without actually having to entertain the inconvenient idea that there might be a God who expected them to do as he said.
People with narcissistic traits are disproportionately represented among the financially successful.
Which is totally unsurprising to me. A strong ego and ambition go hand-in-hand.
But people with narcissistic traits also tend to have stormy relationships.
So they may have it great in one of sphere of their life and suffer in another. Apparently they can’t have it all.
But then again, no one can.
My advice would be to stop looking at how other people’s lives “seem”. Those other people may be secretly suffering or they may be having the best life evah. If you adhered to the true concept of karma, you’d know that it isn’t just about this life anyway, but lives yet to come. Maybe your enemies will suffer next go-around. But what is more certain is that you will suffer at sometime in this life. “Deservedly” or not. Just enjoy the periods of your own not-suffering and don’t worry about when the narcissists are gonna get theirs. As I have learned in yoga, keep your attention on your own mat.
My logical explanation is thus:
Birds of a feather flock together. If you’re a nice person you probably tend to hang out with people who are nice too. It’s not very likely that these people are going to screw you over.
However, if you’re an ass, you probably hang out people who are just as jerky as you. Therefore, your probability of getting screwed just went up ten fold.
So yes, I do believe in Karma, but only as it relatess to the human psyche.
…like a crafty Chameleon