Karma is a bitch with a memory you can’t escape

The most important filter in determining good or evil in a person is the presence of a conscience, writes

In the scene from the movie Scent of a Woman where Lt-Col Frank Slade (played by Al Pacino) is about to shoot himself, Charlie, his weekend caregiver (played by Chris O’Donnell), intervenes, at immediate risk to his life, to stop him. Slade, still pointing a loaded .45 calibre pistol at Charlie, responds: “All my life I stood up to everyone and everything because it made me feel important. You do it because you mean it. You’ve got integrity, Charlie.” Integrity is rare.

How often are we driven to say or do things because of fear; or in search of favour; or driven by guilt or promise; or just because it’s easier; or worse still, popular; or even worse still, to gain a cheap victory at the expense of another? Often, I would suggest. Such is our world of peer pressure and hierarchy.

Whatever the test may be, and whatever the foundation of the score, be it the rules of a club or the accepted behaviour on a tennis court, we all prefer passing to failing. We all prefer the option of acceptance above the certainty of rejection. We all want to fit in.

Many forces are at play that determine which routes we choose in life, and why. But the decision to act is always personal and consequential, and we are finally, personally, held to account. It’s also true that we seldom know or understand the forces at play in other people’s lives that drive their actions and opinions. While we will always be judged and bear consequence, it doesn’t follow that we are entitled to judge and decide punishments for others. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, I’m just saying you shouldn’t expect to be right all the time — or even often.

Religion and laws and similar such constructs of association (publicly agreed and recorded) are required to be obeyed as conditions of membership. But membership is voluntary, other than sovereign law in your place of birth (and you can usually leave when you’re a grown-up).

We can’t blame the rules. It’s neither the systems nor the rule books that ultimately determine our obedience, our character, or our happiness. It’s personal. It’s our conscience.

I’ve found that, above all other traits, the most important filter in determining the good or evil in a person is the presence of a conscience. Avoid at all cost — and no matter how well otherwise presented — people without a conscience (particularly if at first you like them).

What then will guide us towards the integrity of Charlie? I hold as true and obvious certain axioms — such as to never take out more than you’ve put in — which in their abundance define conventional wisdom. Justice and fairness are, likewise, found in many ways and in accordance with rules as diverse as their sources and the peoples from which they originate.

For me though, the scorecard isn’t marked at the end of life or any other defined point or sequence of events. It’s a continuing moving average, always adjusting, often resetting —a cause-effect continuum, perhaps best captured in the concept of karma.

I’ve found karma to be an extraordinarily reliable force. We do get what we deserve. The actions of our past will affect our futures. It’s like that, even if you don’t believe it, and it’s like that even if it’s not measurable or specific or capable of set-off. It just is.

If you want to experience good fortune, or even just feel good, it’s best you plant some of that goodwill well before harvest time.

Whether a course is good or evil is always obvious (and universally so), but it’s not always easy to take the right path. Don’t be persuaded from your truth, don’t be lured by the ill-gotten, transient rewards of the alternative. If you don’t deserve it, the gift will never satisfy you. Crooks never have enough money. Don’t envy them their unearned wealth so pitifully on display. They never find the peace of a quenched thirst. Shame.

I may be preaching here, and I’m certainly not qualified to do that (nor is it my intention), but I do know that scores are always settled, both positive and negative. Karma doesn’t weaken or decay with time. You can store as much good karma as you like. You can backfill the holes you made on the way — it’s not over until it’s over.

This balance, this fairness, is true across many dimensions — the deals you sign, the relationships you find yourself in, your physical wellbeing ... everything. People who train more get fitter. People who eat more put on weight. Nobody has ever regretted going for a run in the morning.

It’s not required of us to be puritan or to live a life devoid of error or beyond reproach. Healthy doses of naughtiness and adventure are good for the soul. The boxes and boundaries are not the tests.

The test is simply this: when you reflect on the choices you made, in the circumstances you found yourself in, were you the good guy, or not?