Do unto others as you would...

From the time I was a kid, I have often heard of concepts and notions such as the previous-life and the after-life and such other things. While in general, I am a believer and I do not see anything wrong in accepting the possibility of such concepts, the one concept which I do not believe in is that your fate in this life is a result of the good and the bad you did in your previous life.
I am a firm believer in "now and here" and hence believe that what you get in this life is a result of what you do in this life. It ain't like the accounting system wherein you can carry forward past losses to get a tax break next time around. One should be very careful about one's each and every action, as the result of these actions is what we get every day (though I must say the timing part of the equation can be a little off!!)
When I was a kid, if anything bad were to happen to me I would always reflect back and see what was the mis-deed I had done recently. Sure enough, I would find one which I could relate with the bad result in the same proportion. This had become so much of a second nature to me that till I was able to establish a cause-effect relationship, my mind would not rest.
You might say that this is rather obvious given the number of mis-deeds each of us do on a daily basis (after all, none of us are a pious soul really!!). Indeed you are right. However, the key to this exercise of mine was the magnitude of the mis-deed and the magnitude of the misery that had befallen me. More often than not, in the scale in my mind, I would be able to weigh those and realise that the scales were more or less in balance.
Funnily, I would never do this co-relation exercise whenever something good happened to me. I often wondered why I never did so, but never came to a real answer. Maybe some of you guys can tell me why.
As it happens, over the years I lost this habit of mine (maybe because my mis-deeds became so many as to be rather unwieldy and unmanageable ;). I would often this back and wonder if the r-square would be as high if I were to track it again.
It was only recently that I actually got back to the analysis and starting keeping some sort of a rough score. And lo and behold, the r-square seems to be pretty much up there for the mis-deeds. As like old days, I still do not check for the good things. Also, I do not think I am half as rigourous as the olden days. Still, this exercise serves as a good self-check for me with regard to my behaviour!!
Often, even as I am doing something which I know is wrong, I also know that this will result in some bad consequence. And as sure as the sun rises, the consequences are there.
I guess its very much like the old adage - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", except that the others is a rather broad definition and not just other people.