Showing posts with label Karma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karma. Show all posts

Saturday, April 9, 2011

DisGraceFul

   At work yesterday, as I was slipping out of my chair to go to lunch, I hit my hip on a corner of my desk. When I bent over to check out the damage, I hit my head on - brace yourself - the plastic straw of the tumbler I recently bought in an effort to not spill things quite so often. (Seriously there is still a two inch red mark on my forehead; it wasn't gross at all trying to clean the straw of the skin cells it scraped off of my face).

A mere hour later (returning from lunch) I dropped something and squatted down to get it. Wouldn't you know it, I managed to hit the back of head on the underside of the desk - so hard in fact that a coworker brought me a small bag of ice to put on the newest injury.

((It might be too much to include here that as soon as I sat back in my chair I hit my ankle on the nearby bookcase, flipping the middle shelf and sending the contents flying... ))

My clumsiness is probably hereditary (yes, if you must know, I googled it). My father is a smooth talker but ummm, he can't exactly walk the walk (sorry Daddy!). For real tho, the man has had way more creative injuries than I can attempt to count. And my son... well, for now we'll just say he's an active little boy and accidents are expected.

I've been following in my father's stumbling footsteps for quite a while now, now that I think about it. Back in middle school I was playing second base for my softball team when a grounder hit a rock, popped up and hit me in the face - giving me two black eyes, a broken nose and leaving the imprint of the ball's stitches on my chin. (My dad and stepmom made me go to school the next day - thanks a lot!)

Before that, I was climbing on my cousin's back trying to reach the pears in our neighbor's tree when i fell and fractured my arm - on my cousin's face. Side note: while my arm was still in a sling, I further injured it by using it to jumprope (because that's perfectly logical).

Oh, oh, oh! There was also the time I was plugging in my laptop and then backed into the corner of the counter, causing a stream of blood to flow from my lower back right down into my... well, I'm sure you can figure it out (it rhymes with back). And once, I dropped a chopstick that stabbed me between the toes, making me trip and hit my head on the nearby doorframe. (All this while perfectly sober, mind you.)

My typical response is to laugh - I think I've actually forgotten how to cry about pain. Usually there are only tears after I've giggled so hard I can't breath (and yes, if you fall, I'll laugh then too). Is this a normal or healthy reaction? Hell if I know. Maybe I'm a freak - my mother tells me that I never cried about shots as a baby/kid. I tend to respond that way to emotional pain too - it's inappropriate, maybe, but it's me.

Which brings to me to my point. We're all unique individuals - none of us are good at everything (such as walking without causing bodily harm) but all of us are good at something. When you're the one that's successful, how about being generous and kind to those who are struggling in that area instead of being prideful and harsh?

Hmmmm, let me put it like this: If you're gracefull (sic), share the wealth and show some grace to those who aren't.
***Because if you don't, sure enough, you can count on karma to trip your selfish ass... ;)***




Monday, February 7, 2011

Kind of Nice

How you treat other people is more about who YOU are and less about the other people.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to say that, but I've realized it's pretty freakin' true.

It's obviously not good to be mean to others, so I want to focus on the difference in being nice and being kind. I mean, nice people are cool... they're polite, they tolerate others, they're... nice. But kindness surpasses niceness.

Forgive me, I've been too lazy (or, ahem, reallllly busy) to do the in-depth research about the root of the word "kind", but it seems like it is somehow related to words like "kin, kindred" etc. That's how I got my little epiphany.

When you are kind to someone, you are saying "I recognize we are kindred, we are related, we are of the same kind." It's looking beyond age, gender, race, sexual orientation and every other possible difference and acknowledging that we are all connected.

When I looked up "kind" in the thesaurus, "nice" wasn't even listed as a synonym! Niceness may tolerate you, but kindness accepts you... loves you because you are family.

Kindness is putting namaste into action. 

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Why, Thanks!

I don't know why bad things happen to good people. However, in my current lifetime I have noticed something very interesting:
Yes, bad things happen to "good" people. But bad things also happen to "bad" people.
Good things happen to "good" people. And good things happen to "bad" people.

It makes me think of that Bible verse about it raining on both the just and the unjust.

Sometimes it seems like Karma totally works... and sometimes, if I'm honest, it seems like Karma feel asleep at the wheel. (Hahahahaha, get it? A wheel is a circle.. karma is the idea of what goes around comes around...hahahahaha. Hey, I found it verrrry clever.)

Anyways, the point I'm getting to is this - I could say that you should be thankful, because if you're thankful you'll set yourself up for more good things to happen to you. Truth is, I can't guarantee that. What I can say is that having a thankful heart will enable you to see how much good is already in your life and will keep you in good shape for noticing the good things that'll happen to you in the future. Likewise, if you're not thankful for what you already have, you'll be more inclined to pay the most attention to any negative things that happen to you in the future.

It goes along with that saying about money not buying happiness. After all, it's never about what you have, what your relationship is like, or what your health is. It's always about how you perceive yourself based on what you have, how you see your relationship, how you feel about your health. Ya know - perception is the ultimate reality, it's all relative, etc, etc, etc.
*Not to say it doesn't suck to be poor, lonely or sick - I'm just digging a little deeper than those surface symptoms.

Basically, I just don't think that gratitude is a magical formula that brings good stuff your way. I think gratitude is like a good pair of contacts or glasses that puts things in better focus.

Happy Thanksgiving.