Karma and the Christmas Present

It’s Real, if you make it

As human beings we are wired to believe things happen for a reason. Some of this is nature, some is nurture. We believe in prayer, we believe in superstitions, and as a whole we buy into the karma thing. The power of these is all real to varying degrees and we have a great deal of control over our own karma — in the modern sense of the word. The trick is to stop waiting for stuff to happen because we deserve it, and stop blaming ourselves when bad things happen — because we deserved it. But today, I will tell you about some real life “karma” that has hit a person I despise.

Last year I wrote about having real enemies and being a coward, a very personal post where I touch upon some personal issues and the lingering guilt over how I handled being confronted with a man aiming to kill me — I ran away, long story short. I was unarmed and unprepared and that was my only out. That was over seven years ago but I still get occasional twinges of guilt for being a coward.

In the mean time I have come across the Yoyo on occasion. Small town, similar circles. It can’t be avoided sometimes. He may or may not remember that night — he was crazy drunk — but I do. Things have changed since then, however. A few months before I wrote that post there was a time when he, again drunkenly, came into my daily life and I did not appreciate it. He took off before it got physical (wisely), but I confronted him via a text message to let him know such behavior was unwelcome. He acted all tough and cool about it, but there was some direct fall-out:

– I accused him of still being hung up on his ex but told him that she was my wife now and he had to get over that.
– He got very defensive about his current girlfriend and I am fairly certain he had her read over his response before he sent it. Within a week he was “engaged” to her. This would have worked out swimmingly bad for him but she left him within a few weeks of that — because he is, in fact, still hung up on my wife.

This is a victory condition for me, when it comes to Yoyo: he still wants what I have, and in his mind I cuckolded him. He hates me and it still threatens to consume him. Sure, I feel like a coward sometimes — but I’ll take that over feeling like a cuckold. There isn’t much worse for a man.

However, he has further damaged his own life. He married a woman almost ten years older than he is, a woman with no steady employment. According to what I have heard from reliable sources she does nothing around the house but has set a chore schedule for him. When he returns home from work she has a schedule for when he should cook and do laundry.

Now, sometimes when I get home I like to cook. I find it to be an almost meditative process, where myself and heat work to turn some food into a meal. But I have always enjoyed cooking for the creativity of it (I do not have strict recipes). However, if I came home and Bendy presented me with a list and a time table she’d not like the end result where none of it got done.

This guy goes home and his fat wife tells him to start doing chores. Oh, that’s the other thing: she’s not just a lot older and lazy, she’s also unattractive and hit the wall about fifteen years ago or more. Highly damaged skin, shaped like a deformed pear, overweight. She also has the dead-eyed, thousand cock stare of a professional carousel rider. That may or may not be a fair assessment, but basically this man has put himself in a situation where he is married to a woman that does nothing and isn’t even what he likes physically.

Also, she either sold her house or got out of a lease before they got married and therefore now he is supporting her and providing a residence so even if he decided to get out of it she could pretty easily shred him in a divorce. I could represent her and get a win and I have zero family court or regular court appearance outside of jury duty.

Yeah, it’s bad. You can’t buy satisfaction like that. She’s gotten her claws in every aspect of his life and he can’t get out, and it cost me nothing for him to do it. He did this injury to himself, although I’ll take an assist for my perceived role in his last relationship crashing down around him.

Meanwhile, on my side of the seven years:

– I’m happily married.
– I’m in the best mental place I ever have been.
– I’ve written three books from start to finish, The Boots are Red, The Boots Come Off, and Temple of the Fallen, in addition to the short story collection The White Dames.
– I’ve faced adversity with my knee and bounced back.
– I have a great job that I am good at.

Nothing bad happening to him was necessary for any of my success. While this is all personal, and a whole lot of my joy at seeing him hurt himself (and I know that isn’t attractive but I don’t care at all)… the point is, you have to make your own luck and karma. None of my gains in life have come to me from a place of luck, or without my own work going into it.

I worked to get my job, I work on my marriage, I wrote those books, I sought help when I couldn’t get out of the spiral of self-hatred. I fought through the issues with my knee. Everything worth a damn came from working on it.

I didn’t wait on someone to bring me a great life. Maybe he did, I don’t know. It seems to me like he just assumed he deserved things and acted as though he was entitled to them. I know that’s part of what drove my wife away from him — he treated her poorly. I do not.

Finally, one last thing about the cowardice. Ever since I told him off, the few times I’ve seen him, the man has refused to meet my gaze while I have done my best to bore a hole in him with my glare. Karma works out for people who meet the gaze of everyone around them. Looking people in the eye gives you an advantage in our smart-phone-staring, conflict averse society. Look the motherfuckers in the eye otherwise they’ll think you’re scared of them. Even if you’re scared, look them in the eye. When I see Yoyo and he looks away from me I know he’s scared of me.

Aldo wouldn’t look McGregor in the eye going into UFC 194. Sure, he mocked his pose at the weigh-in. But right up to the match he was staring straight down. When the match started, McGregor clocked him on the side of the head and knocked him out. Some of that is directly attributable to the fact McGregor stared a hole in him and Aldo looked down at his feet during the introductions. I knew when I saw Aldo’s body language he was already defeated. Was it karma, was it luck? No — McGregor made it happen by having the will to make it happen.

Look them in the eyes and never flinch. You’ll make your own karma, your own luck, if you do that.