Don't F--- with Karma

I'd like to think that what goes around really does come around, but sometimes, on matters of comeuppance, the universe seems like one big free for all.

Take my friend, G. She is, without a doubt, the nicest, most generous, kindest person I know. She's a selfless single mom who's committed to her son, her church and in general doing the right thing. I mean, aside from the occasional glass of Lambrusco and rare slippage of cuss words, you'd think this chick walks on water. (Because in my book, she does.)

But she's got a cloud of bad luck that just won't go away. Car trouble. Man trouble. Mother trouble. It never ends. And she recently confessed to me that it's getting tougher and tougher to pick up, dust off and move on. But somehow she does. If anyone deserves to be angry or bitter, it's G. But despite it all, she's always quick with a smile and reluctant to share her troubles with others.

When's karma going to show up and start turning things around for this girl?

Then you take someone who's the total opposite. Someone who bitches and moans at every turn. Someone who rarely has a kind word to say about anyone, but who appears to lead a charmed life.

I've written before about having had a boss so awful, that every day for two years, I drove to work feeling sicker and sicker the closer I got to the office park. She made me and others on our team feel like worthless peons, both by her words and her actions. She was power hungry and self-centered. Yet she had a great job, traveled often, lived a lavish lifestyle and talked of her many friends.

Every day of those two years, I thought about karma. Would she continue to be rewarded for her behavior?

I was fortunate enough to see what I think was karma step in and knock her down a few pegs. Through a re-org, she was booted from VP status into cubicleville and handed a director title. She was stripped of her team (yeah me!) and had to eat crow every day for a few years as she walked past my cube, and the cubes of others she'd repeatedly put down, to get to her own.

That certainly felt like karma. But I know instances like that are hardly the norm.

Maybe it's just that life's cyclical and karma comes in waves -- and not as some grand, final reward.

I'd like to think that God has a big golden clip board full of names. Names of people who deserve good karma. Who are kind, hard working, and committed to doing the right thing. And that every so often, he peruses the list to see who deserves a little karma.

He'll send some unforeseen blessing: A grocery clerk who whispers in your ear to step to her empty line, bypassing the 20 people in front of you. A favorite song that just happens to come on the radio just when you needed to hear it. A well-timed compliment when you're feeling low.

Maybe karma is the sum of many little blessings, or rays of light that peek into our lives from time to time. And it's up to us to be smart enough to recognize it when it's happening, and not expect for some, big lotto-like payday.

I do believe in karma. I do. I believe in a higher power who wants us to do the right thing and who will reward is in ways both big and small for our efforts. Surely nothing good can come from being an asshole, right?

We get what we give. We reap what we sow.

Don't f--- with karma, baby. I'm not.