“Everything happens for a reason…what goes around comes around…the universe will balance things out.” You’ve heard innumerable different iterations of these karmic platitudes, and in my opinion, they’re nonsense at best and injurious at worst. This popularized “wisdom” has been regurgitated ad nauseam, often to provide solace in both serious and frivolous situations, but that doesn’t make it accurate or ethical. I submit that everything does not happen for a reason; a reason is assigned to everything that happens. These justifications help us explain both unwelcome and preferable outcomes and satisfy our cognitive imperative. It seems to give people comfort to believe that there is some kind of controlling force guiding the flow of events instead of the fact that many occurrences just happen without rhyme or reason. One doesn’t need to chalk up happenings to karma or the mysterious workings of nature or qi (chi). I find one of the most satisfying, amusing and incredible parts of life to be the instances of coincidence and irony.

Throughout this piece, there will be times when I’m conflating “everything happens for a reason” with “what goes around comes around,” because both assert a governance in the universe without providing any legitimate evidence. Here are five reasons why you should reconsider these fallacious beliefs:

1. It humiliates the idea of an internal locus of control

To think that everything will balance itself out is to support the notion of an external locus of control: to believe that events are outside of your power. Assuming that justice will be done because that’s the way the universe works may be mentally satisfying, but it’s a reckless way to think. It implicitly endorses abandoning the pursuit of justice by assuming that the corrupt will get their comeuppance thanks to the karmic forces of nature. It’s a thought that provides mental comfort, but nothing else except the potential for complacency. To know that you and your actions are responsible for the outcome is to acknowledge personal responsibility, on which all ethics and morality must be centered.

2. It's wildly inaccurate

Drawing from Martin Kaste’s piece for NPR, “Open Cases: Why One-Third Of Murders In America Go Unresolved,” in about a third of all the murders in the United States, the police will not identify the killer. In fact, Kaste says that criminologists estimate that at least 200,000 murders have gone unsolved since the 1960s. Today, only 64.1 percent of homicides end in an arrest (not even necessarily a conviction), but about 50 years ago that percentage was north of 90, according to Kaste. If karma is real, then it’s embarrassingly inconsistent. And this is just murder. We’re not even addressing rape, theft, kidnapping, sex trafficking, abuse, and the plethora of other despicable crimes committed. To think that karma applies to the bully at school getting roughed up but not the kidnapper who currently imprisons a child and will never get caught, or the murderer walking the street, is to aspire to a special kind of foolishness. It’s to either say that karma is a highly selective phenomenon, or that the kidnapped youngster was quite naughty in another life. Neither answer is particularly heartening.

3. It cheapens good deeds by providing ulterior motives

Even in the realm of intentions, karma is laughably flawed. “I’ve been so nice lately, I should have very good karma.” Isn’t there something slimy about this? The notion that someone is doing something kind in order to have “good karma” is off-putting, at least to me. Herein, we see a close alignment with religion and the concept surrounding the afterlife. Both have an ulterior motive for performing good deeds. For religion’s afterlife, the underlying motive is entry into heaven and eternal paradise (while the deterrent for evil is infinite torture, grotesque as that is), whereas for karmic intuitions, the incentive to be moral is that the universe will pay you back with “good karma,” while the disincentive for wickedness is being inflicted with “bad karma.” At the risk of sounding self-righteous, why isn’t the inherent goodness of the action enough? Or perhaps even just a quiet conscience?

4. It's arrogant to the point of solipsism

Query: what evidence, besides personal anecdote, do you possess that suggests the universe is a rational entity that not only keeps the score, but corrects it as well? Just try and contemplate the vastness of the universe and the insignificance of the actions of one species of primate, on one planet, in one solar system, in one of billions upon billions of galaxies. If you think that some entity (universe, nature, God, whatever entertains you) cares about you getting double-crossed in business, your classmate cheating on an exam or your friend giving a hefty tip to a waitress, then your self-centeredness has reached the point of solipsism. Considering all the unpunished evil (as Kaste’s statistics help illustrate) and unrecognized, unrewarded altruism, one has to perform some fantastic mental gymnastics in order to delude oneself about the truth of karma. Or perhaps try telling the families of Tutsis in Rwanda, the parents of kidnapped children, or the spouse of a journalist who was beheaded overseas that “everything happens for a reason,” and you’ll realize how absurd the gesture really is.

5. It is sadomasochistic

My final indictment against karma is that it is sadomasochistic—it involves a pleasure derived from both inflicting and receiving pain. The sadomasochism is rooted in the belief that people get what they deserve, whether it was due to a transgression in this life, or a past one. Now, I understand that this aspect of karma is a bit more traditional regarding Hinduism (and I’ve been speaking more to the popularized karmic intuitions), but this facet does rear its ugly head at times in American culture. If something unfortunate happens to them, some people actually think that it’s because they did something horrible during another existence, or they will make a passing comment about it and perpetuate the notion. This is masochism, but to have these same sentiments about something harmful happening to someone else, is sadism. There is no evidence to suggest that benevolent or malicious acts influence one’s fortune solely based on its moral content.

In closing:

To rid oneself of the delusion of karma is to realize that the only justice we have is the justice we make. As a society, we have a responsibility to uphold what is fair, what is just, what is moral and to arbitrate accordingly. To suggest that what goes around comes around is endorsing a deterministic philosophy that shirks this responsibility. Of course, there are many instances in which we have no, or very little control over the outcome, but I submit that these times are less frequent than credited, and that the most useful and morally sound assumption is that one can always maintain an influence. Thus, an honest effort can consistently be made, and the charge of failing to act can be avoided.

Not to be outdone, declaring that everything happens for a reason is as absurd as it is unethical, when one considers the amount of senseless evil that is committed and the pain and hardship that follows. By saying this, one is supporting a sadistic outlook that must assume that heinous acts have some kind of meaning, silver lining, or outright good.

Enough with the platitudes claiming that “everything happens for a reason” and “what goes around comes around.” Ultimately, our best chance for making what went around come back around and for bringing meaning to tragedy is the justice our society establishes. The most magnificent, yet solemn responsibility we have is continuing the ancient conversation of how to build the just city. Saying that “everything happens for a reason,” or that “what goes around comes around,” is hindering the dialogue.