Note : This article is a mere reflection of life from a point where there is no karma and it’s ok to be selfish at times.

As someone who reddits a lot I often come across the saying along the lines of you can do everything right and still end up losing in life which though paradoxical is a quote many people agree given the fact that Reddit is based on karma. So this post is a serious of experiences that I have come across where a good amount of selfishness is ok.

Things I can afford

I commute daily to my office and when I changed job till I had to relocate back to a place near my office it took me around 3 hours on commute which was insane but I was lazy to switch nearby and thus had to pay for it. I usually try to take the normal bus in the evenings since there are a lot of breakdowns in AC buses and also need to take into account the fact that I try to leave office during peak time around 6 and the starting point of the bus is near my office. Hence among the crowd I try to get a seat somehow and most of the time I try to get a seat by the door so that it will be easy for me to get down.

There comes the hard part that since many people rush into the bus there is always someone elder than me asking me to spare the seat. One fine day I tried to tell the one who asked me that I need to travel 1.5 hours and quickly got some strange stares from people accusing me of inhumanity right from the looks but safe enough not to lend their seats. Since I can’t get crushed for 1.5 hours on the bus I try to take the AC bus which comes at the cost of 4 times more than the normal bus. It’s not that I can’t afford the price but the fact that there is no guarantee that the bus will make it through home and almost half of the time there will be a breakdown and I need to get switch buses which further increases the commute.

Ok this post is not about improving the commute experience in India which I might write someday but more about the fact that sometimes you have to be selfish enough to do the thing that makes you happy forgetting about the whole karma part. The above experience can be equally applied back to a lot of things in life where you have to a gulp of water and say no sometimes forsake of your own happiness in life.

Just one more bug

When it comes to work there is always an urge to sit for another hour just to finish the task which you can still to do it the other day. It comes at the cost that it builds a lot of wrong expectations from the management side and it’s a fact of work that there will always be bugs to fix and things to refactor every other day. There has to be some amount of selfishness when it comes to work life balance to get your ass home at the right time though you don’t really have much to do.

This is a simple point where the conscience seems to make you guilty for being selfish but it’s perfectly ok to do so. The key point is to use selfishness at the right amount and not to get engulfed in it by applying it in situations where other people are involved and get into the mindset of survival of the fittest making devastating political decisions.

Karma will kill the person

Relationships are other part where this also stands to be true. Trying to fit in someone where you clearly don’t belong and making changes to character that was the essential base for the relationship also leads to detrimental effects. So a good amount of quote that I regularly get to read is to leave someone in a selfish manner sooner than later instead of crushing yourself to fit in the picture that you clearly don’t appreciate anymore. But this regularly leads the other person on the side to believe that Karma will take care of the selfish person which is not true for the most part.

The person who believes that karma will take care is the one who has been making sacrifices to save the relationship though his/her inner conscience knows they should have been selfish. So when the other person takes the chance and leaves for their own happiness it’s easy to believe that the selfish step you should have taken in the first place will turn into karma. Whenever there is a selfish sacrifice you need to make to save something it’s a clear indication it’s not certainly love anymore. It doesn’t make selfishness look bad but it’s a clear first indicator that this is not going to last out in the long term but you deliberately avoided the clue that was given to you and it’s not healthy to think it will convert to magical karma. So it’s ok to leave selfishly after considerate amount of thinking and with due respect to the person on the other side. You will be the receiver and sender in this game and need to play safe and good.

Questionnaire

  • But I don’t have anything do to at home It’s more about the fact that you have to be selfish enough to lower the expectations on when you leave and to make some time for life at later point though you don’t have one now
  • So the person who left me selfishly spoke harshly There is a clear difference between selfishness and self-respect
  • Is this about the Big boss game? Ha ha, Hell no! :)

PS : The above advice on work-life balance and relationships came from a lot of good friends and credits to them :)

packs bag for the return journey