“Karma’s not a b*tch, she’s a mirror.”
Dustin Poirier
When what goes around finally comes back around, what arrives can certainly be painful. Life is painful. And many times, what we send out into the world is pain. Pain that comes from personal experience and pain that’s sent by the people we’ve caused pain to. Maybe not intentionally, but because we’re imperfect, suffering creatures who are doing the best we can with what we’ve been given in life. And many times, what we’ve been given is more pain than we’ve learned how to properly manage.
Hence, why most people will say karma is a b*tch.
But, the conversation doesn’t end there. Just because we’ve been dealt pain, doesn’t mean that’s what we have to send back out into the world. We can transform pain. We can find ways to send out the opposite of pain. We can send kindness, compassion, love, joy, and healing. Easier said than done in many cases—but, possible none-the-less. And with that, not only will there be less pain perpetuated out into the world, but there will be much better alternatives circling around which may very well make their way back to us.
This is the case for why karma isn’t so much a b*tch as she might be a mirror.
When you exude anger, what looks back at you from the mirror? Anger. And if what you see in yourself is anger looking back at you, why would it be any different for the rest of the world to look back at you with anything other than anger? This is how the metaphorical mirror of the world works. What you exude in character and behavior is what will reflect back at you in return. The pain that you ripple out will eventually ripple back in. And, just as importantly—so, too, will whatever else you choose to ripple out into the world.
Here’s the thing to understand though: the ripples of your actions aren’t the only ripples rippling out and around the pond of the world.
There are billions of us sending out ripples in impossible to track, overlapping, cancelling, magnifying, convoluting ways. Sometimes it’s the case that what comes our way is a direct reflection of what we sent out and sometimes, it’s just not. Trying to manipulate and control this inextricably complex pond of waves is futile. What’s not futile, however, is focusing all of our time and energy on sending out the best ripples we can—because they’re the only ripples we’ll ever be able to truly control.
And the final piece to consider, that can’t be overlooked, is that our ripples will affect how and what every other person who is touched by our ripple(s) might ripple back our way.
In other words, going back to our anger example, if what you ripple out is anger, then whoever that anger affects will be increasingly likely to ripple more of the same right back towards you. And so it is for anything else you drop into the pond of life. And this, in its essence, is how karma works. Not solely by getting hit by your own ripples as they ripple back from the other side of the pond. But, by getting smacked by ripples from the people around you who were affected by the ripples you (or someone else in proximity) sent out.
So, maybe karma isn’t so much of a b*tch as she is complicated. And maybe, it’s not that she’s unjust or unfair or untimely. It’s just that she’s doing the best she can, with what all of us are giving her—complex, confusing, exponentially increasing numbers of waves—at any given moment of time.
Moreover, maybe the mirror we’re looking into is more than a lonely reflection composed solely of our actions. Maybe it’s a collective reflection that only appears as a singular pair of eyes, but is actually a composition of a million eyes, all pixelated together. And what’s looking back at us isn’t the fate of our karma, but is the fate of our collective karma if we do nothing to change it.
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