karma

[margene]

I think i have bad karma coming to me. My fear of being alone. I hold grudges and shut people out. Therefore I'm gonna be alone. Also there are several people I am close to who are very lonely. One being my mother. I can't just sit there and keep them company all the time either. My mother is welcome to live with me but she doesn't want to. I feel bad for her but she won't even come to my house. She's not comfortable there. The other person I'm referring to is I have a job helping out an older man once a week. He tells me he's in solitary confinement stuck in his apartment all the time. He lives in a senior building so he could socialize with his neighbors. I guess I'm all over the place here. I been waking up with a panicky feeling that I'm gonna get what I deserve.

[iris lilies]

Do you get out of your house for social activities? What are your interests?

[margene]

Yes I get out alot. I have friends and family. My interest in the summer is outdoor live music. This is just a fear I have. Maybe it's unreasonable. I also feel bad that others are lonely.

[iris lilies]

That's great you get out and have interest where you can be with others.

what does "lonely" mean to you? There is the important concept that I'm sure you know, that "aloneness" doesn't mean "loneliness." Do you buy that?

[margene]

Yea i know that concept. To be honest I don't think that's true for most people. Most people do need human interaction on regular basis.

[iris lilies]

Yea i know that concept. To be honest I don't think that's true for most people. Most people do need human interaction on regular basis.
Oh I agree, it's kind of an old chesnut with some truth but not universally true. I think we need quality interaction, though, with people who validate us.

[thunderseed]

I think i have bad karma coming to me. My fear of being alone. I hold grudges and shut people out. Therefore I'm gonna be alone. Also there are several people I am close to who are very lonely. One being my mother. I can't just sit there and keep them company all the time either. My mother is welcome to live with me but she doesn't want to. I feel bad for her but she won't even come to my house. She's not comfortable there. The other person I'm referring to is I have a job helping out an older man once a week. He tells me he's in solitary confinement stuck in his apartment all the time. He lives in a senior building so he could socialize with his neighbors. I guess I'm all over the place here. I been waking up with a panicky feeling that I'm gonna get what I deserve.

I don't think that is called karma, that is the law of attraction, like attracts like, so you attract what you are.
You can also think of it in a more spiritual way, and realize that all the synchronicities you see around you are simply meant to teach you something.
Why is it that you keep meeting other people who are alone?

It could be that your life is drawing you nearer to these other people who are alone so that you can have relationships with them, so that you both don't have to be alone.
It could be that you are seeing all these lonely people, because you are meant to work on your own loneliness.


You hold grudges and shut people out... That sounds pretty vauge so I don't know the whole story, but I just want to say that it's perfectly okay to have standards...
When people are jerks, you don't have to keep them in your life. You are allowed to be choosy, there is nothing wrong with that.
The problem may not be you, it may be that you just haven't found the right people...
There's a lot of mean spirited jerks out there, but if you keep looking, you will find someone you can trust eventually. There are some good people out there still.
You seem to have a lot of people in your life, so I think if you feel lonely, it comes from a deeper problem or lack of connection to these people that are there.

And also, I don't believe in karma. I've done a lot of bad things in my life and feel like I should have been punished for them, but never was. It started from when I was a kid, my parent's never gave me enough structure so I became rebellious. I acted out and did bad things so I could get in trouble - never happened, in fact I was just rewarded every time I did something wrong. I committed crimes, turned myself in and still they ended up accusing someone else of the crimes and let me go free. Life sometimes isn't fair. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.
But I do not believe there is a punishing force that punishes people for the misakes they make. I really don't. Sometimes I really wish it were true, because I wish bad people would get what they deserve but they never do, and the odd times they do, it is great to see, but that only happens 10 times out of a bajillion. Some people are jerks on a regular basis and I always hope karma will get them, but it never does.

That's actually a good thing though because I managed to change around my life and become a better person all on my own accord, and because I wasn't punished for things, I was able to make ammends and turn things around...

[bekkilyn]

I don't view karma as some sort of punishing force, but more like the law of cause and effect. Your actions and thoughts create conditions in your life that eventually will have some sort of consequence. It doesn't have some sentient motive such as being vengeful. By making amends, you may have cleansed some of the effects that might otherwise have resulted in negative consequences. Good things may happen to bad people because they may have been very generous in some way in the past (or even in a previous life, for those who believe in the cycle of rebirth.)

[Stacy]

Margene- What I'm reading is that it's not bad karma you have but a phobia about being alone. You hold grudges and shut people out, you say. Do you do that to everyone? It doesn't look like it, because you've offered to let your mother live with you and she's turned you down. It almost looks like she's creating her own loneliness.

Thunderseed makes a good point: "It could be that your life is drawing you nearer to these other people who are alone so that you can have relationships with them, so that you both don't have to be alone. It could be that you are seeing all these lonely people, because you are meant to work on your own loneliness." That sounds a lot like a calling to me.

[margene]

Well I do like the idea of this being a calling.

[happystuff]

I don't view karma as some sort of punishing force, but more like the law of cause and effect. Your actions and thoughts create conditions in your life that eventually will have some sort of consequence. It doesn't have some sentient motive such as being vengeful. By making amends, you may have cleansed some of the effects that might otherwise have resulted in negative consequences. Good things may happen to bad people because they may have been very generous in some way in the past (or even in a previous life, for those who believe in the cycle of rebirth.)

This is very similar to what I was thinking when I read the OP. My current Buddhist teaching actually says karma is "cause and effect".

Margene - lots of good responses, ideas and suggestions already made. Personally I'm looking forward to a time in my life when I can be "alone", but I don't believe I will be lonely at all! I have many people in my life and have room for new friends as they come. I like the suggestion someone made about examining your own ideas about being alone. Good luck to you.

[Songbird]

Some people are jerks on a regular basis and I always hope karma will get them, but it never does.

i have seen much later in life that jerks always eventually reap their bad karma....

[kib]

When dealing with your mother and the senior gentleman, don't forget that people present negative information for a variety of reasons. Maybe I tell you I'm lonely because I think you will relate better to me than if I tell you I like being alone. Maybe I tell you I have no one because it's so much easier to strike up an engaged, bonding conversation about something negative than something positive. Maybe I believe I ought to have more friends and I'm expressing my inferiority, like showing you my belly, when I actually prefer to be alone even though I don't acknowledge it to myself.

I say this because I must admit, I lament having only one good friend here in my new town ... but when I really dig, I haven't made much effort. I'm too busy, they're not who I envisioned, I'm not who I envisioned when we get together. While I carry some sense of shame about periods of being 'unpopular' in my childhood, I have to question whether this feeling of anxiety over my social life is a true feeling, or an expected feeling.

[Xmac]

Karma means action.

Wayne Dyer said it well:
How people treat you is their Karma, how you react to it is yours.

[catherine]

It sounds like you're projecting your own fears onto these two elderly people. Just because they are choosing "solitary confinement" doesn't mean you have to. If you are self-aware enough to know that this is not what you want for yourself, you are in a position to change it.

I've also seen elderly people who complain about loneliness but don't do anything about it. Your fate is not pre-determined; nor are you due for some bad karma. You can choose to be UNlike your mother and the elderly man you visit--in fact, you already are--inviting your mother to your home and reaching out to this man who is obviously lonely. That's wonderful!

[JaneV2.0]

Some solitary people are self-contained and perfectly happy that way.

[sylvia]

Karma to me is way of the universe righting wrongs, teaching lessons and it's actually a good thing. Ive done so much misering and pennypinching, praying and am hoping karma comes with blessings and some financial breaks. If I didnt experience all the bad debt I created I wouldnt have discovered the need to be simple and frugal.Its just I am continuing to be frugal and simple and just getting by so hoping for some financial abundance.I am also suppressing my creativity and talents so I think my karma is to express them then the abundance with come. I also agree with Law of attraction and visualizing what you want . Its also true there are constant stream of lessons to learn, what we resist, persists. I share in your feelings of loneliness as that has plagued me all my life, first at age five emigrating to a foreign country, no more extended family , then again my parents moved away to another state . I got married my in laws were my family but now they too have moved away.