“Don’t shoot the messenger.” 

In this case, the messenger is the one bringing about our consequences. A co-worker laughs openly at our mistakes made in the annual report. A loved one criticizes us embarrassingly in front of others. Our laptop is stolen, a neighbor plays his TV loudly while we’re trying to sleep, a visiting child breaks our heirloom teapot.

Getting upset with the co-worker, loved one, thief, neighbor, or child are misdirected actions—born from not understanding or nor remembering the pervasiveness of causality. If we hadn’t laughed at another, criticized unskillfully, stolen or broken someone’s property, made a lot of noise that bothered others in this or past lifetimes, we wouldn’t be experiencing these incidents.

All the above people are just the messengers delivering our karmic retributions. Our getting upset or angry or sad just plants more seeds for the same, and even worse. We need to work with ourselves on learning to accept our karmic consequences.

And not shoot the messenger.