Kickback

Do you believe in Karma?
A dear friend was the first to ask me this in quite a while after a personal hardship forced her to ask herself the same question.
I thought about the answer for a while, because keeping faith of any sort is a problem for me. I don't like religion or any sort of dogma for that matter, but Karma is a case I now realize I'm willing to keep faith for.
I have to believe in Karma. I have to believe that all those people out there who do bad things to other people, who make stupid choices and then blame the fallout on other people, and who do not learn from their mistakes no matter how many people they hurt in the process, will eventually get theirs. I have to believe that if I live well, and kindly, if I learn from my mistakes and make decisions wisely and try as hard as I can not to hurt other people and to make others happy, that I will be rewarded, somehow.
Another dear friend recently watched the movie "The Secret" after going through a rough breakup; I know the basics of what that philosophy is about, and I agree with a lot of them. After she watched the movie, I was happy to see that her outlook had changed, and she was feeling a lot better about the world and her circumstances. "The Secret" dictates this: if you put positivity out there, it will eventually come back to you and help you be happy and content. But if you put negativity out there, which I sometimes am guilty of doing, then all you'll get back is a kick in the pants, or worse.
So I have to believe that the people around me who constantly screw up and hurt other people, who don't learn from the mistakes they make and take to blaming other people for their failures, will eventually get their just reward. If I can't believe that, then I don't know what I'm going to do.

-Laur