Improve my Karma.

Last night, at the grocery store, a short woman asked me to reach an item on the top shelf for her. There were other people near her, but she looked around a bit before she spotted me. I wonder if I am finally giving off that “helpful” vibe. If so, that makes me glad :)

Hmm… So I’ve been thinking about this over the last few days. Is it even correct for me to want to do this? Doesn’t my selfish intent to increase my karma dilute whatever karmic benefit I would get from my actions? Ultimately, I should increase my karma by doing right actions because they are right, not because I want cosmic good luck. If I can’t shake the feeling that I am sucking up to the powers that be by doing this, I will change the goal to something like “commit random acts of kindness” instead.

I will take a couple of toner cartridges to another of my company’s branch offices. They did not keep good track of their supplies and ran out at a bad time, and giving them these will leave my office short. Still, I must have compassion on those who are in need, even if by their own actions.

I was visiting one of my branch offices today, and was about to leave for my office when a lost young lady came in. She was looking for one of my competitors to start work there, but she was already late and could not find the place. We are maybe three blocks away, but their office is hidden inside a hard-to-spot business park.

It seemed like such a huge inconvenience to have her follow me so I could show her the way, but I decided to do it anyway. In the end, it only took an extra 10 minutes and she was very appreciative. I know it’s not a big thing, but it still feels good to do a random act of kindness.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I spent time with some relatives I hardly ever see. One in particular has an annoying habit, which I’ve never noticed before. Evey time she pays a compliment, it is in fact a thinly veiled insult. For example, she might say “I didn’t think fat people could pull off an outfit like that, but you look really nice in it.”

The discovery for me is that I have been doing this, too. I will make an effort to stop doing this. I must focus on what is positive about people, not what is negative.

I haven’t been living well. It occurs to me that I have hurt a lot of people recently, and I want to do what I can to correct it. However, I fear that I will hurt other people (or worse, those same people even more) while I set things right. Well, even if I take on more Karmic guilt in the process, I must do what is right. There’s a lot to fix, so this will be a long-term goal, for sure…