Karma is not a Boomerang

Yesterday I was driving some colleagues to lunch and I waved a car along in front of me. I didn't have to do it. There was space behind me. I told my work mates that I'm trying to do anything and everything I can do lately to put good karma out into the world. I laughed because I mentioned that having our house on the market has inspired me to be as nice as possible so good karma will come back to me in the form of a home buyer.

I am mostly joking about that. I don't really believe in karma the way most people seem to. I don't truly think that I deserve good things any more when I am nice than when I am not nice. Sure, things happen for a reason, but day to day most of what we do doesn't have a huge impact on the world as a whole.

Or does it? Maybe karma isn't such a strange concept after all. You can't think of it as a boomerang though. It's not like you can disperse all these good deeds so that good deeds will come flying back to you. That's not realistic. However, if we stick with a metaphorical boomerang for just a bit maybe you can think of it this way:

Your good deed may go out and affect someone else in a positive way. That puts that person in the mood to do good as well. They throw out their own little boomerang of karma and it hits someone else (gently of course). Each person that gets hit has the choice to put more good out into the world or not. Hopefully the more people who choose to do good, the better our world will become. Eventually positive actions come around to affect everyone, including people who initially started the good deed chain.

The opposite is true as well, unfortunately. If I am cross with someone or rude to them, it can have a negative affect on that person's day. That might, in turn, cause them to treat someone else rudely. Those kinds of actions and behaviors can have a ripple affect too.

In each case, though, we can choose our reactions. We can choose to take the good that we receive and stash it away in a pocket or we can choose to pass it along. We can also choose to take the hateful things that come our way and set them aside, or we can pass them on to others. In the end it's all about our choices.

Karma seems like a tit for tat type of arrangement. In reality, cause and affect are not usually so immediate as to make a direct link in our minds. However, people who do good and are kind tend to attract good and kind people. And people who are selfish tend to be surrounded by others who are likewise.

If we could all make a conscious effort to put more good out into the world than bad, think of what a positive impact that could have. Sure, bad things would still happen, but our attitudes about it would change and over time, on average, things would be mostly positive.

Today, to make the world a better place, I will pass along more smiles than scowls, more hugs than hurts, and more kindness just for the heck of it than for the sake of karma. How about you?


You've just read my contribution to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 13 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado
The Bergham Chronicles
Spatulas on Parade
Dinosaur Superhero Mommy
The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver
Southern Belle Charm
Confessions of a part time working mom
Sparkly Poetic Weirdo
Never Ever Give Up Hope
When I Grow Up
Climaxed
Evil Joy Speaks

My subject was "Today, to make the world a better place I will..." It was submitted by: http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com