You can’t look into your karmic account and figure out when good things are going to come, when bad things are going to come.

"A lot of people are embarrassed to think about the fact that they may have committed some pretty bad karma in the past. But we’re all in that boat, simply that some people’s karma is showing now and other people’s is going to show later. Because you can’t look into your karmic account and figure out what the running balance is or when good things are going to come, when bad things are going to come.

The Buddha’s image is more like a field. You plant seeds, and some of the seeds sprout quickly, some seeds sprout slowly. What you’re seeing right now are the seeds that are sprouting right now, but you don’t know what else you have planted in that field. You don’t know what else other people have in their fields. Use this thought to depersonalize the issue.

And remember that patience is a virtue, endurance is a virtue. Our society doesn’t encourage much of it. We want things to go well right now, but sometimes there are obstacles. And as in the case with any obstacle, there are those that are quickly resolved. You can see what the problem is, you can get around it. Others take a lot of time, and you have to figure out some way to make yourself equal to the task. That’s why the Buddha gives those images of goodwill and patience as being so large: large like the Earth, large like the River Ganges, bigger than whatever disturbances there may be.

So when a bad karmic storm comes whipping up, remind yourself you’ve been through worse. After all the human realm is one of the better realms to be born into. We’ve all been through the lower realms, but here we are: We survived. The question is how to survive with as much good karma as you can."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Karma Storms"