The Falsehood of Karma

Has anybody else realized yet that karma is fake?

I don’t mean that a higher power or cosmic entity doesn’t exist - I’m not here to have that debate. I mean, the idea that everyone gets “what’s coming to them” has felt less possible with every passing year.

Growing up, I had a very specific idea of karma drilled into my head. That good things would happen to me if I was kind, and bad things would eventually happen to people who were bad. It was a comforting thought, as I drifted through my teens and twenties from one traumatic experience to another. As long as I was kind and just kept working hard, this terrible thing happening to me would eventually pass, and I’d be rewarded with something good. And all of these bad people, who did bad things to me and those I cared about, would suffer for it - maybe not now, but surely somewhere down the line.

You know what really happened?

Those people who were supposed to suffer, to get what was coming to them… they’re fine. They’re thriving, continuing to treat others as badly as they treated me…or even worse. They benefited, and continue to benefit, from suffering. 

The last two years have been an especially hard lesson in the falsehood of karma. I met person after terrible person, each time thinking my situation couldn’t get any worse, someone even worse would come into my life. I was playing the final boss of a video game in a never-ending loop, the kind that gets harder and harder each time you think it’s dead. 

I’m stuck. And I’m bitter.

My goal at the end of 2021, after a string of bad luck with toxic bosses and coworkers and just terrible interactions with terrible humans, was to “tell more people to fuck off.” To be honest, I don’t think I did much of that. If anything, this year, more people have told me to fuck off. In retrospect, going into a new year with walls up and fire on my tongue might have set me up for a bad time.

So what’s next for 2023 Rachel?

Well, end-of-2022 Rachel is in a pretty similar situation to end-of-2021 Rachel. She’s in the same crummy apartment, jobless, lonely, and angry. She’s tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop, working hard and having success within reach, only to have it slip through her fingers.

But end-of-2022 Rachel is also on the precipice of something great. She’s married to a man who loves and supports her in the best and worst of times. She’s ready to start a new life somewhere else - maybe Minnesota, maybe North Carolina, maybe even Arizona. She’s creatively and professionally energized, looking for ways to work for herself and not someone else who can abuse and take advantage of her. And, let’s be honest, she might tell someone to fuck off, but only if she needs to.

If karma is real, my hard work will be rewarded. If it’s not real, none of this matters, and I’m working hard for no one but myself.

But hey, maybe that’s what I should have been doing this whole time.