At the Las Vegas airport early in the morning, I witnessed an entitled woman with a small dog cause a scene. While loudly chatting on FaceTime, she ignored her dog as it relieved itself on the terminal floor. When people tried to alert her, she snapped at them and then rudely demanded that a young airport cleaner “do his job” instead of picking up after her pet. Furious at her arrogance, I offered the shaken worker some reassurance and tried to calm myself, but the incident stuck with me.

Later, I discovered the same woman at my gate, her dog barking as she played music loudly without headphones. Still fuming, I told her her London flight had moved to another gate—even though it hadn’t. She rushed off, believing me. When boarding started, she didn’t return. I boarded the plane feeling smug, convinced that karma had worked fast—but also uneasy about what I’d done.

During the flight, a fellow passenger named Mei struck up a conversation and helped distract me from the guilt growing inside. When I overheard someone say a woman had missed her flight because someone gave her wrong gate information, my stomach dropped. I confessed everything to Mei. Instead of judging me, she reminded me that feeling remorse meant I wasn’t a bad person—and that anger can make us act in ways we regret.

By the time we landed in London, I’d made a quiet promise to be better. The entitled woman’s behavior had been awful, but stooping to her level taught me a painful lesson: karma doesn’t always need help, and doing the wrong thing—even for the “right” reason—still leaves a weight on your conscience.