If my life were to be plotted out in a timeline, last week would have been titled “Worst Week EVER,” scribbled angrily in Sharpie and dotted with numerous sad faces. “I am so sorry, Lauren,” you say sympathetically. “What on earth happened to embitter such a sweet girl like you?” Oh, Reader, you are my only consolation.
So why was my week so bad? It started with the pathetically lousy grade I received on an essay I slaved over. Then there’s the technological aneurism my iPod suffered as it abruptly died after only three months of use. Oh, and I forgot to mention the friend who got mad at me over something I didn’t even do.
My already-crappy mood magnified the little things: I ruined my cute new shoes. The vending machine was out of my favorite snack. I accidentally overslept and was late for a class. I had a pop quiz in the only class for which I hadn’t yet done the reading. And through it all, I just kept trudging on, all the time wondering, “What have I done to deserve this?”
Friends, family and random victims of my emotional venting agreed: It was karma.
The idea of karma — that one action can bring about another, that the deeds of the world’s population are interconnected somehow — is nothing new. Karma in its most official sense finds its origins in Eastern religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. It seeks to enforce the concept of cause and effect — what goes around comes around.
In our society, however, karma is applied to everyday situations in a much less formal way. When something goes wrong, when a good deed goes unappreciated, when any basic “FML” moment occurs, karma seems to be the perpetual culprit, taking pleasure in our pain. Sure, it’s fun to tease a friend about his new haircut at first. But when spill your coffee in your lap a moment later, and everyone laughs at you? Not so fun. At least that’s what I hear. That totally isn’t a personal experience or anything.
But is karma really to blame? Who’s to say that there’s a direct connection between events — that littering on a highway will directly cause a biking accident, that gossiping about someone will trigger a bad grade on a midterm? When crappy things happen, we so easily assume that some driving force is trying to avenge our bad behavior. But is it real, or is it just a series of glorified coincidences?
A related example: horoscopes. Every morning in the paper, all 12 zodiac signs are listed along with a short blurb about how each sign’s day will go. Be it luck, heartbreak, or hardship, a horoscope tells the reader what to expect for the day’s events. But are the events of your day really written among the stars? Or are all predictions-come-true mere coincidences? Let’s say you read in your star sign that good news will come to you, and later that day you find out that your family has won the lottery. Isn’t it possible that the correlation between these two events is completely accidental?
Or maybe karma and astrology only exist as true if you believe in them. But if that argument stands, what other things become true only when we have faith? Humanity? Religion? The future? Fairies? Bigfoot?
It’s our society’s own personal translation of the American Dream, then — that if you are a generally good person, you will get to where you want to be in life. Karma has become a comfortable phenomenon for us. After all, it enforces the same ideals preached by our society’s lawmakers: that two wrongs will never make a right, that two rights shouldn’t make a wrong, and that you will get what you deserve, always.
Kind of intimidating to hear, but it sure makes you want to compliment your friend’s bad haircut, doesn’t it?
Lauren’s columns run biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at l.kimmel@cavalierdaily.com.
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