The Real Truth About Karma
Karma means action and our actions lead us down the pathways we take.
Karma, Karma, Karma. What does it mean?
Over the past century, the word karma has completely taken a different path of the root meaning in which it stands. The ancient seed of karma means action. Meaning your experience is entirely determined by you. Health, happiness, misery, ecstasy, sadness, joy; it is all determined by you. Our body is made up of instruments. But throughout life and how fully we want to live it, it all depends on how well we play them.
Most of us meander around life blaming everything on others, blaming our friends, family, life, other surrounding factors, but what we never realize is that our life is our making and we determine how we want to live it. Throughout the past couples years, I have walked around and blamed others for the things that have happened to me. I have blamed everyone else but myself, when I am the only reason to blame for all my downfalls in my life. If all I do is focus on all the negatives in life then my life will become a cycle of never-ending negative connotations. If I want to succeed and become the person I imagine myself to be, then I need to make actions to get to that point.
A lot of us just sit around waiting for a miracle to happen and a lot of us sit around rather than going out and working hard because it is easier to sit around then it is to fail. But failure is a pathway of life that all of us need to take on, because if we don't fail then we will never know what it means to succeed. When we fail, we grow. When we cry, we will reach hope. When we tear down our own well being, we will know what depression really means. We all need to walk down paths that we don't want to take on. But how we take those paths is ultimately up to us.
Here's a lesson I want to preach:
If you want to be an entrepreneur, surround yourself with entrepreneurs. If you want to be a writer, surround yourself with writers. If you want to be a CFO, surround yourself with CFO's. We are supposed to surround ourselves with the people in which we hope to become. But it can also take a different direction. If you surround yourself with people who associate with drug dealing, you are more likely to become pressured into becoming a drug dealer. If you surround yourself with people who don't care about their schooling and academics, you are more likely to not focus on school as well. If you are surrounded by people who only want to party, you will evolve into their party habits.
I think you get the point now.
What I am trying to say is the people you should surround yourself with should be the ones in whom you inspire to become. You want to surround yourself with people who have the same goals and aspirations. You want to surround yourself with people who will lift you up. If you want to focus on academics, internships, and artwork; then surround yourself with people who believe in those pathways too. Majority of my life I have suppressed my own inner well being by surrounding myself with the people I didn't connect to on the inside, but I could fake it on the outside.
But eventually, I turned into the person I never wanted to become. I lost myself along the way and I wish I never did. But now as I am here writing this story in hopes to inspire others to stick to who you are and tell everyone to not give up on finding people who you connect to with on an intellectual side, but also on an aspiration side. Because when you surround yourself with people who aren't like you, you will become someone you never thought you would ever evolve into.
The lesson I am trying to preach here is to take on tasks that scare you. Step outside your comfort zone. When you are uncomfortable, that is good. Uncomfortable measures mean you are learning. And when we learn, we will grow. And growing will lead us down the right path. The paths you take will lead you down the right direction in hopes of achieving your end goal. So find your goal. Who do you want to become? Who do you aspire to be? And once you figure that outtake steps in that direction. And if along the way you make a mishap and walk down the wrong alley. You'll be fine. Get back up and walk down the right road in the right direction and sooner rather than later you'll hit the right spot.
Skyler doing what she loves.Skyler Coons
Skyler's first tattoo that she did on her own leg.Jasmine Conti
A gorgeous piece Skyler has done.Skyler Coons
Another one of Skyler's original pieces!Skyler Coons
Skyler's favorite piece of all time!Skyler Coons
To Those With A Negative View Of Odyssey, Here's Why It's Worth My Time
I'm not a clickbait farm, I'm a young, aspiring writer.
Something that I will never understand is why people have to be so negative when they're online. As a writer on Odyssey, it's hard to see some of the comments that people leave on articles or on Odyssey's Facebook page. From people tearing down writers who are vulnerable enough to openly share their opinions to people downright attacking Odyssey's brand, I'm here to say that I am a writer for the Odyssey and I am proud of it.
When I first joined Odyssey, I had no idea what was in store for me. I didn't know much about the company besides the fact that I see their articles circulate on my Facebook feed. But I can say that my experience writing on Odyssey has only been positive. I have grown as a writer and have learned how to communicate, work and collaborate in a professional manner. It has taught me discipline and has encouraged me to support and value others' viewpoints.
One of the most rewarding things about Odyssey is my position. I serve as the current editor-in-chief for my community (James Madison University) and get to help each and every one of my creators establish identities and learn all the things that I did as a content creator. I learned the importance of packaging articles and get to work one-on-one with professionals who help me whenever I need or want to.
I've found writing on Odyssey a very rewarding experience, so it puzzles me why people have to be so cruel and quick to bash my fellow Odyssey creators. One criticism I see a lot online is that Odyssey doesn't pay its users, but this isn't entirely true. We don't receive a payment for every article we post online, but if an article goes viral, the author is eligible for that article's ad revenue. After all, rewards should be earned, shouldn't they? Like most student writers, I don't write for money. I write because it is something that I love to do and I want to share my passion with the rest of the world.
(But for the record, I have gotten paid for some of my work, which helps motivate me to keep making my work better.)
Sharing your values and opinions openly isn't always the easiest thing to do. It's people like you who make us scared to do what we love. But you know what? It's also people like you who inspire us to keep doing it. Our goal is to spark conversation. There will never be a day where everyone on this planet agrees with one another and that is OK.
We are here to share our thoughts despite that.
We write so that others out there to know that they're not alone.
We write so that even if people don't agree with us, they can still see our work and form an opinion.
We write so that we can decompress.
We write so that we can prepare for a professional career and learn the skills that it takes to grow as a writer.
We are all human and we all have our own opinions. As a writer, I have learned to take things I don't agree with and write a professional response to it. Now, I don't know if that's just me, but it sounds much more intellectual than leaving a comment on Facebook stereotyping those of us who choose to write and shaming a company for sharing our work.
Odyssey is a great way to sharpen your writing skills and grow. My community has deadlines, meetings, rules, and expectations. We don't just scribble words into a text box and click post. I edit articles and the members of my community have to make revisions. It's not easy but it is so rewarding. It's an opportunity for our writing to be seen and for many of us, it's the start of making a name for ourselves. To be an Odyssey creator, you have to be open-minded and accepting of criticism. You have to be disciplined and committed to putting yourself out there, which is why it's so amazing to me that people try to put us down for what we do.
But hey, at the end of it all, one of our biggest goals is to gain as many people talking as possible. Whether you love our articles or hate them, your snarky comments make it clear that you've at least viewed our article, so thank you for adding to the conversation.
If you're still feeling so negative toward Odyssey and the people who create the content you see, I hope you're able to grow and find something that you are passionate about, just as I am about writing. I challenge you to expand your mind and become a more accepting individual and understand that people will never agree — instead of bashing people who choose to be vulnerable, congratulate them for putting themselves out there. Odyssey has taught me to support my community and everyone who writes chooses to write, whether I agree with their words or not. I hope you can learn to do the same.