Why Terrible Things Happen To Good People (That Will Make You Question Everything)

Warning: This will shatter your worldview

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I had the best project idea of my career.

For three months, I worked nights and weekends perfecting it. I researched every detail, created presentations that would make Steve Jobs weep, and poured my soul into something that could change everything for our department.

I was so excited to show Mr. Thompson that I could barely sleep the night before our meeting.

Then he handed my project to Jake.

Jake—who spent his days gossiping about colleagues and taking credit for other people's work. Jake—who I'd personally seen stealing ideas from team meetings and presenting them as his own. Jake—who somehow managed to fail upward while the rest of us actually worked.

"It's a great concept," Thompson said, not even looking at me. "Jake will lead the implementation."

As if that wasn't enough, he reassigned me to a different department. A dead-end role with zero creativity, zero growth potential, and zero respect.

I walked out of that office feeling like I'd been punched in the gut. That night, I sat in my car in the parking lot and screamed at the universe:

"Why the hell does this always happen to me? Why do terrible things happen to good people while pieces of shit like Jake get everything handed to them?"

At Diwali that week, my heart was still heavy from what happened at work. My grandpa noticed my long face on video call. "What's eating you up?" he asked, setting down his chai.

I spilled out the whole story—how I'd worked my ass off on this project, how Thompson gave it to Jake without a second thought, how I got demoted while that gossip-spreading credit-stealer got my dream assignment.

Grandpa listened, slowly stirring his gravy. "Sometimes, terrible things happen. You gotta accept it and make peace with it," he said calmly.

"But why always me?" I exploded. "Why do all the bad things happen to good people? Look at our neighbor, Mrs. Patel—she's a gem of a lady, but she lost her husband in a car accident, her son became an alcoholic, the bank's about to seize her home, and now she's got breast cancer. What wrong did she do to deserve all this punishment?"

He looked at me with those wise eyes and said one word: "Karma."

My instant reaction was to think, "Well, then karma is a bitch!"

Though I didn't say it out loud, he must have seen it in my face. He smiled knowingly. "Most people misuse karma because they have a myopic vision of this deep spiritual concept."

"What do you mean?" I asked, genuinely curious despite my frustration.

What he told me that night completely shattered everything I thought I knew about fairness, justice, and why life seems to punish good people while rewarding the jerks.

The Lie We Tell Ourselves About Good People

Here's the first uncomfortable truth my grandpa taught me:

There are no "good people" and "bad people."

I know that statement probably made you want to throw your phone across the room. It sure as hell made me want to argue with him. But stay with me.

We've been conditioned to think in Disney movie terms. Good guys wear white hats. Bad guys wear black hats. Heroes save the day. Villains get punished.

But real life isn't a Marvel movie.

Take me, for instance. I was sitting there calling myself a "good person" who deserved better treatment. But was I really? Sure, I worked hard on that project. But I was also the guy who never spoke up when Jake was bullying our intern. I was "too professional" to rock the boat when I saw him stealing credit from junior team members.

I told myself I was being mature, staying above the fray. But my silence enabled Jake's behavior. My passivity allowed a toxic person to thrive while good people suffered.

Does that make me a bad person?

No.

Does it make me a perfect victim?

Also no.

The truth is, we're all walking contradictions.

Every saint has a shadow. Every villain has a moment of kindness. The person who donates to charity might also cheat on their taxes. The criminal might be the only one who stops to help a stranger change a tire.

This isn't moral relativism.

It's reality.

The Victim Complex That's Ruining Your Life

Here's the second uncomfortable truth: Asking "Why do bad things happen to good people?" is actually a form of narcissism.

I can hear you getting angry already. "How dare you call suffering people narcissists!"

But think about it. When you ask this question, you're making several assumptions:

1. You can accurately judge who's "good" and who's "bad"

2. Good people deserve protection from suffering

3. Bad people deserve punishment

4. The universe operates according to your moral framework

That's not spiritual wisdom. That's playing God.

When I was ranting to my grandpa about Jake getting my project, my first instinct was to play the victim. "This is so unfair. I worked so hard for this."

But grandpa's gentle smile revealed something ugly about my own thinking. I was implying that I deserved success because I was "good" and Jake didn't deserve it because he was "bad."

I was unconsciously creating a moral hierarchy where some people deserve rewards and others deserve punishment—with me, of course, firmly planted in the "deserves good things" category.

The universe doesn't give a damn about your moral scorecards.

The Dark Psychology Behind "Good" People

Here's where it gets really uncomfortable: Most people who identify as "good" are actually driven by fear, not virtue.

I spent years being the "good employee." Always helping colleagues. Never saying no to extra work. Putting the company's needs first. I told myself I was being professional and virtuous.

But when I examined my motives after that humiliating meeting with Thompson, I discovered the truth:

I was terrified of conflict. I was addicted to approval. I was working overtime and staying quiet about Jake's behavior because I hoped it would make management like me.

My "goodness" was actually elaborate people-pleasing disguised as virtue.

Think about it. When Jake was stealing credit from team members, I didn't speak up because I was afraid of looking like a troublemaker. When he was gossiping about colleagues, I didn't call him out because I was worried about making enemies.

I wasn't being good. I was being a coward. And then I had the audacity to expect the universe to reward my cowardice with career success.

Think about the people in your life who are always talking about how good they are. The ones who post their charity work on social media. The ones who make sure everyone knows about their sacrifices.

Notice how they also tend to be the most bitter when life doesn't reward their goodness?

They're keeping score. They expect the universe to pay them back for their good deeds.

That's not goodness. That's a transaction disguised as virtue.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Karma

Everyone loves to talk about karma. "What goes around comes around." "They'll get theirs eventually."

But here's what nobody tells you: Karma isn't a cosmic justice system. It's a psychological pattern.

When you do good things, you feel good about yourself. When you feel good about yourself, you make better decisions. When you make better decisions, better things tend to happen to you.

When you do shitty things, you feel shitty about yourself. When you feel shitty about yourself, you make worse decisions. When you make worse decisions, worse things tend to happen to you.

It's not magic. It's psychology.

This system has a massive lag time. And it's not precise. Good people can suffer for decades before seeing any "reward." Bad people can thrive for years before facing consequences.

The universe keep spreadsheets. Just like most scientific research, assume that the Karmic law is only about “cause and effect.”

Even if we remember this 24/7, our actions will improve. We would not indulge in trivial bickering or talking behind anyone’s back — because it’ll have a consequence.

Now, suppose we are using the sword of Karma to prove our point or to belittle someone by saying arrogantly, “You were bad to me, and so you deserve this punishment from God.”

Isn’t this rude behavior or egoistic attitude going to impact our lives?

It surely would.

Sooner or later, we will face the consequence of our impoliteness in the form of people boycotting us, unfriending us, etc.

But when that happens, we forget it’s just the result of our past actions. When I say past actions, it can be anything — from the past hour, day, week, year, or past life.

Hence, understanding the law of Karma in its true nature is inevitable to improve our actions and make our lives better.

How Does the Law of Karma “OPERATE”?

Extending the application of the Law of Karma to the future, it would be correct to say that the soul, which is in the form of the infant now, will also continue to exist even when the body dies/decays/is burnt because it will have to receive reward or suffer punishment for his actions done in that lifetime.

Besides, his own existence must not end with this body; otherwise, the Law of Karma would cease to be operative.

This would suggest that a person can escape punishment for immoral acts when he dies.

“The law of cause and effect operates in the form of an eternal series as the links of an endless chain.

It does not stop suddenly at one end because, at every step, the effect works as a cause and gives rise to another result, and this series of cause-effect — cause-effect… goes on.”

Also, we may fail to keep track of our past actions owing to our limitations. Most souls forget who they were and what they did in their past lives.

(Hypnotic Regression has proved this fact.)

As a result of losing this awareness, we get confused, irritated, and sometimes distressed when uncomfortable situations hit us “due to our past actions.”

But, the forces of cause-effect — cause-effect… are working eternally.

So, the series of birth and death also becomes eternal because the sequence of Karmas remains perpetual.

Sometimes, there may be a little pause between a cause and its effect, and the outcome may, at some stage, work as the cause for the first cause of the chain and may thus form a cycle, but it cannot end finally and forever.

This law of cause and effect or the Karmic philosophy or natural justice principles leads us to conclude that the ‘conscient being’ reincarnates.

This series of reincarnations must be cyclic, though it may pause for a period, and the pace of reincarnations may speed up or slow down, but it must not stop forever and forever.

Even if we do not agree as to whether the series of reincarnations is cyclic or linear, one thing to which all the six systems of ancient Indian Philosophy agree is that the ‘conscient being’ in the body does not have only one birth, but instead, it has several reincarnations.

This means that the self, the conscious being (soul) in the body, neither dies when the body perishes nor is it born when the new life takes place.

“Our present life is just the continuation of the previous one. The soul is just settling and making new Karmic debts based on its actions.”

In other words, the soul is everlasting and perpetual, i.e., it is eternal and immortal.

A logical conclusion is that the self or the soul is an entity that is different from the body.

The People Who Actually Thrive

I've studied people who've experienced tremendous suffering and come out stronger. Holocaust survivors. Parents who lost children. People who've survived abuse, addiction, and trauma.

They all share one common trait: They stopped asking "Why me?" and started asking "What now?"

They didn't waste energy trying to figure out if they deserved their suffering. They didn't spend years being bitter about the unfairness of it all. They accepted that bad things happen to everyone, and they focused on what they could control: their response.

Viktor Frankl, who survived the Nazi concentration camps, wrote:

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:

the last of human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances."

The people who thrive don't ask why. They ask how.

The Dangerous Comfort of Victim Thinking

Here's something nobody talks about: Being a victim is comfortable.

When you're a victim, you don't have to take responsibility for your life. You can blame your problems on bad luck, other people, or an unfair universe. You can stay stuck and feel righteous about it.

I know this because I lived it for years. When my business failed, I blamed the economy. When my relationship ended, I blamed her "inability to handle a real man." When I got fired, I blamed office politics.

I was the victim in every story I told myself.

Being a victim felt better than admitting I had choices I wasn't making.

But here's the cost: When you're a victim, you're powerless. You're waiting for the universe to fix things for you. You're hoping someone else will save you.

You're not living. You're just surviving.

The Liberation in Accepting Randomness

After that conversation with my grandpa, I stopped expecting the universe to reward my good behavior. I stopped being surprised when hard work didn't guarantee success. I stopped waiting for Jake to get his comeuppance.

Instead, I started focusing on what I could control:

my choices, my responses, my attitude, and most importantly, my actions when I witnessed unfairness.

The moment I stopped expecting fairness, I became free.

When life hits you with unfairness, you have two choices:

You can spend your energy being angry about the injustice, or you can spend it responding with wisdom and taking action where you can.

The universe doesn't care which one you choose. But you will.

The Real Reason Good People Suffer

Good people don't suffer more than bad people. They just care more about their suffering.

Think about it. Jake doesn't lie awake at night wondering if he deserves his success. He doesn't feel guilty about stealing credit. He doesn't question whether he's worthy of that promotion.

He sleeps great at night.

But me?

I tortured myself for weeks after losing that project. I felt guilty about my resentment. I worried about whether I was being too negative. I carried the weight of the workplace injustice on my shoulders.

The "good" employee who gets passed over for promotion spends months wondering what they did wrong. The "bad" employee who gets promoted immediately starts planning their next move.

Who do you think advances faster in their career?

Goodness isn't a shield against workplace politics. It's often a liability.

What Actually Matters

So what's the point of being good if it doesn't protect you from suffering?

You don't be good to avoid suffering. You be good to create meaning.

When you help someone, you're not just making a deposit in the cosmic bank account. You're participating in the human experience. You're choosing to add beauty to a random, chaotic world.

When you show compassion, you're not earning protection from pain. You're acknowledging that we're all in this together, all struggling with the same fundamental challenges.

As a writer, I get tons of negative comments on my work. Sometimes, I want to shut them up. But then I stop myself. Why even waste energy? Negative people will always have something to be negative about. It’s about them. Not me. This allows me to focus on the 99% positive comments I receive.

Goodness isn't about getting rewards. It's about giving meaning to an otherwise meaningless existence.

The Questions That Actually Matter

Instead of asking "Why do bad things happen to good people?" try asking:

• How can I respond to this situation in a way that creates beauty instead of more suffering?

• What can I learn from this experience that will help me help others?

• How can I use this pain to develop deeper compassion?

• What meaning can I create from this randomness?

These questions don't provide easy answers. But they provide useful ones.

The right questions don't eliminate suffering. They transform it.

The End of Magical Thinking

There’re plenty of reasons why Thompson gave my project to Jake. May be a consequence of karma from past birth. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe I needed a reality check on my ego. Plenty of reasons.

But I've stopped needing to understand.

Life is fair. Only my near sighted vision isn’t able to see it.

But that’s my problem. And I needed to fix it. And crying about it or sulking isnt an asnwer.

Meaning doesn't come from understanding why things happen. It comes from choosing how to respond when they do.

The universe doesn't owe you fairness. Your boss doesn't owe you recognition. Your workplace doesn't owe you justice.

But you owe yourself the choice to act with integrity regardless.

Stop asking why bad things happen to good people. Start asking how to maintain your integrity when bad things happen.

That's the only question that actually matters.

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What do you think? Are you ready to stop playing victim to the universe's randomness?

Hit reply and tell me about a time when you chose meaning over fairness. I read every response.

Best,
Darshak

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P.S. If this newsletter made you uncomfortable, good. Comfort is where dreams go to die. The truth isn't supposed to feel good. It's supposed to set you free.

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