What Comes Around Goes Around

At this point, most of us have heard of the concept of the law of karma, which basically predicts that when you act with bad intentions, negative consequences will befall you as a result.  The American translation is, “What comes around goes around,” which again means, that whatever bad things you start can be expected to come back around and plague you in the end.

How true is that?  The selfish, self-centered parents who neglect the important job of nurturing and raising their children can expect the kids to get into a lot of trouble and cause the parents heartache in later years.  The greedy boss who keeps an enormous salary for himself while his workers struggle to feed their families can eventually expect the workers to revolt and leave his employ.  The dirty cop who keeps confiscated drugs and resells them on the streets is likely to find himself in a dangerous situation from which he cannot escape alive.  The physician who molests women while they are under anesthesia can eventually expect to be exposed and have his career ruined.

It seems obvious that the really creepy, rotten people in the world will eventually get what they deserve, but how does karma play out on a smaller scale, in your world?

You and your spouse both wake up a little tired because you stayed up too late the night before, watching television.  Big deal.  No harm, right?  Well, you can’t find any clean underwear and you know your spouse was going to do laundry yesterday, but didn’t, so you get irritated and complain that there’s no clean clothes.  Still no big deal, right?  Happens in thousands of households all over the country and no real harm has happened yet.

The sleepy spouse is now tired and irritated and seeks to find some fault in the accusing spouse.  Turns out that while the two of them were watching T.V., not only did one neglect to do the laundry, the other left the dirty dishes sitting.  Not to be too obvious, the insulted spouse will wait until an appropriate time to throw in a dig about the dirty dishes, generally while the family is trying to eat breakfast, in view of the kids.  Again, no big deal, right, the kids have to learn about real life.

The kids start their day slightly off-track because of the tension in the household.  They are more likely to get into some minor trouble in school, resulting in having some sort of bad note sent home with them.  Meanwhile, both irritated parents go off to work where they likely take out their irritations on co-workers, making for a fairly unpleasant, exhausting day.  When they get home, the teacher’s note is waiting for them, along with the laundry and dirty dishes.

When they choose, again, to watch T.V. rather than deal with their responsibilities, karma predicts that the whole thing will repeat again the next day.  The law of negative consequences is not just reserved for felons, perverts, and dictators.  You and I will suffer each and every day that we don’t live our lives with good intentions and do our very best to take care of our responsibilities.

Marlo Archer, Ph.D.
Down to Earth Enterprises
1250 E. Baseline Rd., Suite 102
Tempe, AZ 85283
(480) 705-5007