The True Meaning of Karma

Maya came home from school last week and was clearly bothered by something.  During dinner she proceeded to share with us that a girl in her class was having a slumber party and she wasn’t invited.  She was perplexed because she spent time with this little girl, went to the same friends’ parties and they even had a sleepover together.  I talked it over with her before bedtime and could see she was still distressed.  She kept going over in her head what she could have done wrong and then she started to cry.  It broke my heart.  I shared with her a very similar situation when I was about her age.  A young girl (we’ll call her Charlotte) was having a birthday party and I was the only girl in class who wasn’t invited.  Charlotte was a bit of an odd character and somewhat obnoxious, but it still felt awkward to be singled out so blatantly.  When I had my own birthday party later that winter, I still invited her.  It was the right thing to do.  It was never my style to disregard people or make them feel excluded, even to this day.  Maya enjoyed the story.  She asked me what happened to Charlotte.  As it turns out, she exceled in academics and moved her way up the ranks in the financial industry, but in the end, was sent to prison for embezzlement.  I explained to Maya that the moral of the story is to always treat people with kindness and her life will be fulfilled in ways she never knew possible.