This slothy drawing represents some slothy karmic balance.
Long ago I considered myself a bad guy, but a good person. I lived by many codes which kept me a good person, but did many things that would label me a bad guy.
A day came when I wanted to change all that. It was over twenty years ago. I wanted to be the good guy as well as a good person.
Change I did, but what of Karma?
I had a large dept to pay off.
It has haunted me ever since. I always had this hanging over me. To do enough good to gain balance seemed and impossible task, and I feared the pain which would come.
Pain came in doses through the years as I knew it would.
Still, nothing close to balancing my karma in my view.
Balance.
Scales, balance, justice…
2025 has brought pain.
It is my belief that finally my slate is clean. I have been punished for my misdeeds.
The weight of that darkness over my head, haunting every move had become so normalized to me, that when it lifted I seemed almost feather like in ways. That weight disappearing was a gift I’d never expected to feel.
I had achieved balance.
When telling a friend of this, they asked about how much of the balance I restored through goodness rather than pain. I told them not much. Though I’d been a good guy, I’d somehow slowly slipped into being a bad person towards the end. The last eight years or so… good guy, not such a great person, and I’d not “helped” many, or done many good deeds either.
This friend then gave me one of the greatest compliments I’d ever received. I shall not repeat it here, as it isn’t really mine to share, but I will say that this person had come to me around a decade before while in a bad place. Life, thoughts, emotionally, the whole works.
From my perspective I did nothing of note.
From their perspective however I completely changed their entire outlook on specific aspects of life and saved them from permanently going down a path that could have lead to misery and regrets for the remainder of their lives. They believed that God had put me directly in their path specifically to offer them the exact thing they needed to recover from their situation without becoming a follower of a both dark and sad way of thinking and looking at the world in general. I did not save them, but God saved them and used me as the tool to do so.
We then talked of how strange it is that often the exact situation or people come into our lives at exactly the moment we need them most. We talked of how maybe none of these people know their position in such things, and how we ourselves often reject what has been given to us to our own detriment.
Most people are a bit messed up in one way or another, but God, fate, destiny, whatever seems to put you in a situation and give you a person who is exactly what YOU need to heal yourself and build yourself up until those messed bits are just tiny barely visible scars. We then talked of how for some reason many will throw that chance away which leads them to eventual misery.
Why they self destruct in such ways can be rooted in many things. Fear, anxieties, pressures, feeling trapped, feeling triggered by the person or situation, habits and bad patterns, etc.
So, clear back then I was that vessel for this person. I never knew. They never said, and I’d not tried to be such a thing. The idea that maybe God chose me to do a good work and I didn’t mess it up is awesome. I feel privileged and honored.
The idea that I acted in a way that a person needed to help them grow, recover, and eventually heel some wounds makes me feel good. The idea that I steered them away from a path that would not have been good for them, and a decade later they tell me how grateful they are because they know they’d have had a much different life of less quality… It’s hard to process being that to someone when I had no idea.
Slothy Karmic Balance. Slowly I achieved it. I achieved through punishment and pain, but also through good deeds I wasn’t even aware of.
I was a good person trying to be good guy a decade-ish ago when that happened.
I’d not have been there for them if it was the last few years… me the “good guy” who had slipped from being a good person. I’d have failed.
Then again, as a not so great person I don’t believe God, fate, destiny, whatever would have put me in the place to help.
It is more important to be a good person that to be a good guy.
My karma is in balance. I hope never to have it sway greatly to a point of heavy dept again. I shall attempt to live as both a good guy and a good person. If in doubt I’ll lean towards the good person part because if for no other reason I hope to someday be chosen again to act as a vessel of saving grace even if I don’t know it is happening.