KARMA

I'm reading actor Russell Brand's memoir, My Booky Wook, right now. And in one of the chapters, he tells a story about instant karma. In this particular story (as in many of his stories), he was in the midst of a sexual encounter with a woman and she "finished" him, but he didn't "finish" her. Rather, he wandered off to look for drugs. So, the woman got angry, as any woman would, and slapped him and walked out. Naked and now angry as well, he followed her outside and spat in her face. As he was spitting, the door closed and locked behind him and her phone ran out of minutes before he could call a locksmith. So there he was, trapped outside of his flat, with only a pink umbrella to shield his genitals. 

I've never had an instance of instant karma quite as brutal as that. In my life, karma tends to build up for all of the things I've done wrong, and then whack me over the head just when I'm getting comfortable in a situation. Every time it hits, I make another promise to start behaving more responsibly (even though I am pretty responsible to begin with), usually in the realm of relationships. For every person I've done something horrible to in a relationship, I've had a karmic response. I think / hope that this time around, I've paid my dues for everything I've done in my past and so my relationship with Todd is safe from lurking karma debts. Plus, I think we've got a connection that would be stronger than anything karma can throw my way.

Despite my not-always-pleasant relationship with karma, I'm realizing more and more that it's not something with which I should attempt to bargain. It's not about saying, "Well, if I don't snap at my mom right now, I'm safe and karma won't cause me to get food poisoning from eating bad sushi, which would then prohibit us from going shopping as planned." Because thinking like that sort of takes the genuineness out of it. Whether or not karma exists, I want to try to do good things just because it will make people happy. I want to be a better person just because I can, not because I have to. Because if every single person focused on doing good things, maybe the world would be a better place. And I can't rightly preach that others should focus on it if I'm not doing the same myself.