So, I was in the shower, the usual thought trains running all over my mind. One eventually came to a stop at "Karma as a Concept" station and I basically had a world-flipping, crown-and-third-eye-opening epiphany about karma: We accrue karma no matter what our intent in life.

For context, 2022 was the worst year of my life and until this morning, I was living with a slight haze over my days, trying to answer why I experienced that year and frustrated by not being able to find a sufficient answer. For awhile, I tried to rationalize it by saying "it was to break me down so I can better use my mind and gifts for the world," but I was still pretty cross because I'm not using them any more or less than before and I just had aching scars to show for it all. Then came today's epiphany that I wanna break down and put out into the world.

Let's say this 3D space we all share is a very large, mostly still pond, and we are all a cool fantasy lily pad species that can either bloom or wilt when disturbed. Our actions in life are ripples on this pond, ripples that can go on to disturb other lily pads. One blooming is a positive reaction, one wilting is a negative reaction. Karma builds with these reactions, and I realized, regardless of intent, people will respond to you, either internally or externally.

You can be the most two-faced narcissist on the planet, harboring extreme levels of unaddressed self-loathing, guilt, hatred, and all around negativity in private, but be the most accommodating, cozy, social butterfly constantly performing tasks and acts of service for others in an attempt to amass control, and life won't seem to collapse around you, as you only ever seem to cause blooms in life. Or, you can be the nicest, most caring and self-sacrificing empath working 3 jobs, taking care of your parents and kids, and being regularly charitable, but your inherent inner peace and calm, lack of anger or negativity towards other, saintly patience, and seemingly confident demeanor can subconsciously trigger the near endless amount emotionally immature people such a person would be around and cause nothing but wilting with their ripples, and thus build up lots of negative karma over time. This may be why "bad things happen to good people," and vice-versa. The intent behind both examples are clearly negative and positive respectively, but there's a high chance they'll garner opposite effects in life from those around them.

We all obviously build up both good and bad karma in our lifetimes, and the takeaway I personally took from this is that shit happens and all we can do is learn from it. It doesn't matter whether or not our actions echo back at us beyond our awareness. There is no "why," just "what," and I've had a far easier time letting go of my past traumas and walking forward without looking back now.

Anyways, thanks for reading my ramblings :P Have a good day! And I'm super down with discussing this further in the comments.