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Usain Bolt visiting with Karma, as he wins 100m.
Do you ever feel Karma takes to long to extract its cosmic revenge?
I saw this creepy guy at Whole Foods yesterday. He was odd and I kept my eye on him. He stopped at one point to give a woman a complete up and down as she passed; the sunglasses half down type of look. He had a shopping cart with two items in it. Working the Whole Foods for women I suppose. He was ahead of me in line and was rude to my favorite cashier. Something about his credit card not working. As he left I could see him walking into the parking lot. I was curious if the car he drove would shed some light on this character. Turns out, it was not the car it was his parking spot; handicapped. I didn’t notice a physical handicap but clearly he could have another issue. I instantly regretted my haste in judgement.
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When I left Whole Foods for my car, I noticed he was still sitting in his truck. He was visibly angry, yelling at something. He did not have a handicap parking sticker and my initial judgement returned… creep. Our Whole Foods is crowded and I imagined a genuine handicapped person trying to find a spot because of this ass. I instantly went into action mode. I need a cop; I need a Karma Cop. Then I proceeded to take a picture of him parked in the handicapped spot. By the time I pulled out my iphone he was gone.
How do people like this operate in a society I asked myself. Is he completely unaware of his surroundings? Or is he purposely not going to conform to rules that he deems inconvenient to him? Where is karma?
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For billions of people Karma is determined in a prior life. Good or bad follows you through eternity. For many of us Karma is more about revenge.
Karma is not punishment or retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts.
Karma means “deed” or “act” and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction, that governs all life. The effects experienced are also able to be mitigated by actions and are not necessarily fated. That is to say, a particular action now is not binding to some particular, pre-determined future experience or reaction; it is not a simple, one-to-one correspondence of reward or punishment.” By this definition, Karma is not tit for tat. You can do lots of good or bad things with no immediate consequence. In my opinion, Karma is more cumulative.
Karma is like a bank account. Each day you make a deposit which accumulates. You don’t always make withdrawals, but when you do it’s your deposits plus interest.
Here is an example. I used to sell luxury homes for the Ritz-Carlton. One of the principles passed down by the founder of the Ritz-Carlton was to pick up garbage on the property. Even if you were with guests or clients. It is a great habit and it naturally transcends to your life outside of work. I pick up garbage all over the place. So everyday as I moved about the resort I picked up pieces of garbage. Even when no one was looking. It felt good.
One day Karma paid me a visit. I was touring a wealthy buyer and I stopped the golf cart to pick up a water bottle. It was a habit and it occurred subconsciously. A few days later, the buyer purchased an estate home from me. He remarked at the closing a year later, that he bought because he wanted to be a part of a community that cared so much about the details. He felt his home would be in good hands with employees like me. Put me on the board, thank you Karma!
Now lets explore the other side of that transaction with the bank. I picked up a lot of garbage and eventually it came back to me in the form of cash. A few months ago, I was picking up garbage on my favorite beach and cut a deep gash on my forearm with a piece of glass. Good deed rewarded by a flesh wound, where’s the love in that deal? The way I see it, Karma has something big planned for me for the pain and suffering.
Karma is not fate, for humans act with free will creating their own destiny. If you sow goodness you will reap goodness. Vice versa, evil begets evil.
Karma is a lesson in patience.
You cannot expect to do one good thing and be instantly rewarded. Sometimes Karma takes a long time to pay off.
I am spiritual, I pray and I have a personal understanding of my beliefs. As I write this blog, I am realizing that Karma is a fundamental belief in my world. I truly believe we are rewarded in time for being a good person. Do I believe a supreme being has a clip board and is keeping track of Ian Welch? I feel it is more internal. I feel somewhere within me, I am keeping track. I know if I deserve a reward or not. And somehow the universe responds…
My wife and I recently had a son. We have been together 13 years and children had not surfaced in our lives. I was not a bad person, but I was not leading a sustainable lifestyle. I was not healthy and mentally I was drowning in problems. I made lots of poor decisions with my health, lots of negative deposits in my Karma bank account. So in 2011, I was paid a visit from Karma in the form of a quadruple bypass at the age of 40. “Karma’s a bitch” as the saying goes; but was she? That visit set up the opportunity to turn my health around. To take control of my life and not just pass through it but actually live it. I started making lots of positive deposits at Karma Bank. The final deposit was a month-long Bikram Yoga challenge my wife and I completed. One week later my wife was pregnant. Karma paid off in the form of the greatest gift of all.
Remember creepy guy at Whole Foods?
I found a cop a few minutes later and rolled down my window to express my frustration. Turns out, creepy guy was yelling out loud in his truck because he just received a $259 ticket for parking in a handicap spot. The cop also gave him a busted tail light ticket and went out of his way to find a couple outstanding parking tickets.
That was fast Karma, guess it was payday at the bank.
John Lennon said it best. And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make….
IRW
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