I don't believe in karma, although it is a nice idea, what I have noticed is that assholes seem to finish first ALOT, as if there's some law in the universe dictating it.
This is going to sound cheesy, but I think it's better to change what success is. If success is about having the most money, temporarily getting the most action from hot but immature females, then it would seem like they do finish first. But if success is actually about knowing you've done the right thing, and being proud of who you really are, then I don't think assholes finish first very often. I know that when I've done anything assholish no matter what benefit I got from it at the time, I never felt that good. I know that when I've sacrificed things to make the right decision, I may have been a little bummed, but I always had a real deep down satisfaction that felt better than anything else could. I think with the goals literature, TV, movies, maybe society at large say is success it seems like people who are jerks finish first. I really don't believe they do.
To piggy back on Franchise's post you might need to redefine success; but moreover you should ask yourself how much your perception of who the "assholes" are is based on limited interaction and understanding about their own character and personal experiences.
The idea of karma colloquially is really is that you reap what you sow. That if you do lots of good things, eventually something good will come of it. It's more of a logical axiom or wisdom than a spiritual truth. That said, we all know you can do everything right, treat everyone well, and still get screwed. But one could argue that you didn't get screwed, since if you did all of that without expectation of something in return, you actually had a pretty good life and probably were pretty happy. In a more religious sense, karma is about the totality of all the good and bad you've done, and all the good and bad done upon you. If that doesn't equal 0 across all your existences, then you will experience reincarnation when you die until it does equal 0. In this sense, if you save someone's life and expect something in return, you and the other person would keep on being reincarnated until that balance was equalized. So either way you look at it, the idea of someone getting rich and not getting it back to him in this life doesn't really have anything to do with karma in either sense.
As I get older, I'm a firm beleiver in "Things work out for the best in the end". To that point, I don't really focus on other people. I just focus on me and my family. ...and I can't tell you how many times I've been faced with a tough decision and I look back on it, maybe years later, and I'm really happy with the out come. Since I don't focus on other people, I guess the expression ..."Don't playa hate" comes to mind. If somebody else wants to be an a-hole and it works for them, fine. It takes all kinds to make the world go around. As long as they aren't aholes to me and I don't have to spend time around them, then carry on. Cause like I said, Things work themselves out in the end.
Perhaps there is no karma, no higher sense of right and wrong and that is why it seems assholes always come out on top.
Karma exists because of people like me who actually do something about the people that suck. Karma police. Enforcers. If someone threw crab shells in my yard for example, there'd be live crabs in that persons bed within 24hrs.
You are assuming assholes think they are being assholes, this is often times not the case. Therefore, often times they feel fine fine. Such a rationalization may help the person whom has been screwed over, but that is about as far as it goes.
I think for at least part of the time they probably don't realize they are. But there is a time when they realize at least to some extent that they are.
There is no such thing as Karma. Life is a series of random events. Being a great person doesn't net you good things in life, being a bad person doesn't net you bad things in life.
It's impossible to know how karma is affecting your life. It's much more involved than simply attributing certain particular attributes or events to good or bad karma. For you to know karma you'd have to understand the histories of everyone that has ever lived and how they all interacted from generation to generation.
Its simply easier to tear down than to build up. People arent patient enough to build good character because that calls for INCREMENTAL gains. No one wants to "stay in their lane", and most times they don't have to. The more people shortcut, the more abrupt and abrasive they come across. That surely does not give justification for people to validate their own bad behavior and be non-chalant with being an a-hole. I will be proactive time to time with "regulating". At the same time, there's only so much you CAN control. Better to worry more about the big things than the typical everyday human flaws. People are annoying, and you're probably annoying to them in a lot of ways, just gotta deal with it best you can.
