"D" is for Deserve

The idea that people get what they deserve is very popular.  I see it in memes all of the time, and people say it a lot, especially when something negative is happening to someone else.  "What goes around comes around."  "You reap what you sow."  "Karma has no menu.  You get served what you deserve."  We've all heard, and said, these things.  Quips like this wrap stuff up neatly, and distance us from the pain others are experiencing.  But are they true?  Not in my experience.
I have seen some of the kindest folks go through horrible experiences, and some of the cruelest folks I know have had an awful lot of what society would call "good luck."  Break it down even further, some of the kindest folks I know have, at various stages in their life, done some cruel things, and even the cruelest people can be kind from time to time. 
Then there are the definitions of good and bad behavior.  The phlebotomist can seem cruel to the sick child they are drawing blood from, and the unsuspecting person from the Western side of the United States might actually think the person from the Southern side is being kind when they say "Well, bless your heart, honey."  Everything is relative.
I like the idea of Karma.  I like to believe it all balances out in the end.  But I do not believe people get what they deserve on a daily basis.  We all just get the hands that life dealt us.  As Will Munny said in Unforgiven, "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."