Circle game

You talk a lot about karma. You’re not a strict devotee, but you have this feeling that having an altruistic nature will lead to things working out in your favor later in life. You have this idea that the nicer you are and the more you give, the more things will work out later. The easier things will be for you.

Except that you’ve moved to a place where things rarely work out easily. That is, as easy as they would if you still lived in the US. You have failed to reassess this particular brand of karma when you moved to a place where, when things work out, you still believe them to have been hard because you have failed to realize that for here, that was easy. As much as you would never admit to someone, sometimes you want to remind everyone at all hours of everyday how much you don’t have to be here. How much you chose to be here. And how much you perceive you have chosen to give up to be here.

This inflated sense of your position in this new place makes you think that everything here should work out exactly how you want it exactly when you want it exactly how you planned. You fall apart when you are trying to genuinely complete work and systems or structures that are out of your control prevent you from accomplishing what you set out to do (ie when you lost electricity for four days while trying to fill out end of service paperwork). You don’t understand why the universe can’t just align for you.

What you think you deserve here is significantly different than what you really deserve here. Even after almost two years, you sometimes fail to understand that this is what working here is like. That you should just stop whining and feel successful when your work is completed.

This is because of one fundamental omission. What you have failed to understand in all this is that you are not the person who deserves to get everything she wants. You have failed to see that all around you are people who deserve so much more than you. You get mad when you can’t watch the third season of Girls as soon as you get it? What does your friend do when he loses his first child to a disease that probably would have been diagnosable and treatable if he came from where you come from? What do your students do when they are subjected to forms of punishment that are outlawed in your country? What karma did you have already acquired to be born when you were instead of where you are?

If you want to talk about karma, first talk about how much more these people have compiled than you.