This I Believe

Karma is real. I believe in karma, I believe that how you treat people in your everyday life will change for the better or worse what will happen to you in the near future. I believe in random acts of kindness, because when you help a stranger you aren’t just lending a hand, you’re also brightening their day. The law of Karma simply states, “For every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first, and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful.’

Sometime between my junior and senior year I had this paradigm shift. When it hit me I was sitting in our lunch room with about four hundred of my class mates. The table I sat at was of the athletic type, known for being loud and crude at best. I sat there and listened to them talk so appallingly about people that I knew from other classes, good people that were getting cut down without even knowing about it. Sitting quietly, still listening to the ranting and raving of my tablemates, I remember taking a few steps back to look at the way I was going to live my life: Would I get stuck in the drama of he said, she said, now pick a side, or take the time to listen and try to help in the most skillful ways I’ve learned?

I am sick of seeing how rude and un-thoughtful people can be because someone looks, acts, thinks, or lives differently than them. These people that I’m taking about are so wrapped up in hate that they’ve no hope to save themselves from their own loathing. They get stuck in a “down and out, life’s not fair’ attitude that will shred any happy healthy life apart. These are the people that I want to help most. I want to show everyone that people do go out of their way just to make a smile. Kindness is contagious! You could wait till it comes around, or you can get out and start to make a difference in YOUR world, in your community, on your street. It doesn’t even have to be anything special; in fact all it needs to be is thoughtful and honest.