I believe that people who consistently mistreat others will get a taste of their own medicine sooner or later. Whether that's karma or just the natural consequence of being an asshat, I don't know, but it happens. I also believe that most evil people live miserable, joyless lives, which is its own punishment.
It would be nice if we could always witness karma in action, but we can't. The person's fate is out of our hands at that point, which is as it should be. Justice is best handled by the universe, not by us. The moment we take it upon ourselves to dispense justice, it becomes revenge, not justice, and revenge has a way of staining our hands and damaging our souls.
Do I think your ex will get what's coming to him? Maybe. Perhaps even probably. But then, do we all get punished for every bad thing we do? No, and thank goodness for that, because we all make mistakes and do bad things sometimes, intentionally or not. If every sin were punished, we would all be in deep doo-doo.
My advice to you is to let it go. I know you're angry, but who is suffering more from your anger, you or him? Karma may or may not get your ex. You might never know. Forget about him and focus on making yourself happy, treating people right and creating your own good karma. This is the definition of living well, and living well is the best revenge of all.
Thanks for the question.
this is so true. i do believe in karma, and i agree with cary as well. most evil people live joyless lives, they are evil because they are full of dark ugly things inside, and yes, that is their own punishment if nothing else but to wallow in their ugly for the rest of their lives. i have learned that as hard as it is, the high road always works. always. even when you would rather be caught in a bubble skirt at the barneys year end sale than take the high road, it just always works. so dont sit around waiting for their karmic boomerang to hit them or you'll be waiting a while. when they see YOU smiling at the world and doing fantastic, thats exactly when the karmic boomerang comes flying back.
I used to feel that same way about my ex. He was a horrible person, both to me and other people. I found out later that he had a cocaine problem, which still didn't excuse how terrible he treated me. He neglected me, lied to me, possibly cheated on me (it was never proven--just speculation. But still, where there's smoke, there's fire) and broke up with me out of nowhere, twice, leaving me heartbroken and without closure. Both times, he refused to speak to me afterwards, so I never even got a chance to say goodbye. So as you can imagine, I was pretty devastated for quite some time.
Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. I hadn't seen him in almost a year, and suddenly he calls me out of nowhere, wanting to apologize. My initial thoughts were, "Hell yeah! Now's my chance to finally tear him a new @sshole and say all the things I never got to say last year." But when he showed up in my driveway to pick me up, a funny thing happened. When I saw him, all the hatred and anger I had felt for a year just melted away. We drove around and talked about random stuff for a while, and he talked about wanting to start hanging out again, regularly. But I didn't want to. It took him a few days to really get the picture that I was done. So in a way, that was my revenge.
But the ironic part is, I didn't even want that revenge anymore. The spell had been broken-- I want him to be happy. I really, truly do. I want him to do great things in life and become a better person. I'm telling you all of this because I know first hand now that time truly does heal everything. You may think that you want karma to come down on someone, but you'll know you've truly won the battle when someday, you find yourself free from that desire. I hope that it happens for you, too, because I've felt more at peace these past few weeks than I have in a long, long time--like a weight has been lifted off of me. Best of luck.
What an awesome comment. Thanks, Carly. That was lovely and profound.
That was pretty cool. I think we all want that peace...
Awesome. And I know exactly what you're talking about. My first love, perhaps my only true love, was pretty much an a-hole. Or at least, he was to me. For three years, all I wanted was to get back at him or get back with him. It pretty much depended on my mood. He was in a new relationship and still I just couldn't get over it.
Then, one day, I was in class with his girlfriend and I don't know how, or why it happenned exactly then and not earlier and not later, but I actually thought: I want him to be happy. With this girl. And I want her to be happy too. And I hope he treats her better than me. And I hope that she treats him wonderfully as well. (And yes, I know that was an overly incorrect grammatical use of the word "and".)
That's freedom. That's karma letting you be happy. That's all you need. He'll get his, or maybe he won't. The important thing is you get your happiness. :)
Life isn't fair. What you need to realize is that this is a good thing. What I mean is, dating this terrible guy was a bad thing that happened to you. If karma worked, you must have done something to deserve it, and therefore it's your fault. It works both ways.
It's much more comforting to know that when life dumps on you, it isn't necessarily payback for some sin, because sometimes shit happens.
I think when people do awful things, bad consequences happen, but often they happen to someone else entirely. The folks who wrecked the global economy by making idiotic billion-dollar bets can still cry themselves to sleep on their piles of money, y'know? They're not suffering.
So sure, this guy made your life suck for a while, but while he may not get punished for it, that also means that it's not a punishment for you. It's just life.
I don't believe in karma in the equal-reaction sense, but I certainly believe that good things are more likely to happen to good people and bad things are more likely to happen to bad people. Wouldn't you rather act kindly towards a nice person? And don't you think a rude person is likely to get a taste of his own medicine down the line by someone who's fed up it? They're correlated. Like behavior draws to like behavior.
I haven't gotten revenge on a guy that's screwed me over, but I did stand up for myself (which I think is an important distinction). The next time I saw him (which was at the bar) I spilled a drink on him. (I had a brief conversation with him before I spilled it, though, to give him a chance and see if he was going to apologize or acknowledge his behavior in any sort of way. He didn't.) I'll admit, it felt good because I stood up for myself (which is something I'm not accustomed to doing very often). For me, it wasn't about him and getting back at him for how he treated me, it was about ME needing to prove to myself that I'm a strong enough person to stand up for myself when need be.It wasn't the most mature thing I could've done to handle the situation, I know, but in my case, I think it was the best thing I could've done because trying to get over it on my own / not doing anything about it / trying to not think about it and put it out of mind wasn't working.
definitely helped me feel good about standing up for myself.
My grandma used to quote Leviticus: "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord." Then she'd wink and say, "But sometimes He lets us watch."
Sow good, reap good. Sow evil, brace yourself Effie. It's gonna get rough.
I'm glad that you specified that you won't be dishing out the karma. You had me worried there. :P
Yeah, Karma tends to stick up for the victims. It may not be a "He stole my money and was unexpectedly hit by a bus the next day" type scenario, but a "He cheated on me and got herpes" scenarios happen all the time, sometimes they're even likely to happen. The bad things people do tend to turn around and bite them. Just give it time. The best revenge you can give him is to show him how happy and successful you are despite everything he did. Good luck! :)
Godwin's Law, I know. But Hitler got to take his own life so I'm not big on universal justice. Of course, this is not an endorsement of personal "justice."