Things not written/Karma

I have several half-written blog posts that I have yet to finish. I was talking to a fellow blogger/friend who said that those are the posts that are crap, that aren't worth publication. She's pretty much right. I wrote one scathing paragraph about karma (about how I don't believe in it) that might grace these virtual pages one day, but I also have a draft I entitled "You get what you deserve." Contradictions. To be fair, "You get what you deserve" was not about karma, but still. I can't proclaim that karma is crap and then write about getting what one deserves. 

Oh, what the heck. I'll share my diatribe on karma here, in the likely event I never go back to that piece:

Karma is crap. Think before you mention karma to someone who has greatly suffered. To tell someone they deserve a hardship because of something they have or have not done is an awful thing to say. No one deserves a giant pancreatic tumor. No one deserves cancer. No one deserves to have their life cut short my declining health or a tragic accident. Does the speeding jerk who cut you off deserve to get pulled over? Sure. But call that consequences, don't call it karma. To be clear, no one directly said I deserved a tumor. But to preach "karma" is an insult.

So, that's how I feel about karma. (And that's a conclusion a fifth grader would write. At least I didn't open with a question. "Did you know...")

Now that I've established my feelings on karma and that I don't always finish what I start (ahem, blog posts), what about getting what you deserve? Well, that post was crap. Sometimes you do get what you deserve, but like I said, I attribute that to consequences, not karma. My inner teacher voice is telling me to point out that consequences are both positive and negative. But I also need to point out that in this example, I am attaching consequences to conscious choices. 

Bad stuff happens to people. Period. Do not try to justify a tragedy by thinking it was somehow deserved. You will not convince me that I got my tumor because I "deserved" it,  unless you somehow weave the words "gene mutation" into your explanation, like "The mutated gene thought you deserved a pancreatic tumor." Life handed me lemons (actually, the tumor was more of the size of a single small orange). So, I've made the choice to make lemonade. I'm still working out the recipe for my lemonade, but it somewhat includes writing clichéd metaphors whilst sharing my life experiences. Someday, I hope to reach more people and use my experiences for the greater good, like promoting pancreatic cancer awareness (which hopefully leads to more funding which hopefully leads to medical advances). I will keep trying to make lemonade, as life does not discriminate when it comes to handing out lemons.