what goes around comes around

I lost something so dear to me at a time I needed it most—my earmuff.

Of all the nights, it had to happen on a cold, windy night of about negative effing something degrees. I must have dropped it somewhere as I was scurrying down the slippery sidewalk on the way to the nearest bus stop.

Oh well. Wherever my fur-coated earmuff is right now is probably in the hands of that lucky bastard who probably has no intention of looking for its rightful owner. After all, earmuffs are lost and found every day, right? Who would give a damn?

Yeah, that was what I thought too when I found someone else’s earmuff lying on a vacant train seat about a couple of weeks back. At that time I had no real need for one because I had my own and it was working perfectly fine. Still I found myself shoving the newfound treasure in my bag, thinking that if I were the owner, I wouldn't go all the way back just for something so basic and virtually worthless ($9 at Wallgreens).

Well I know stealing is bad, but who gets punished for keeping something that doesn't belong to anyone?

So two weeks later, on that cold winter night of about negative effing something degrees, my bare ears—cold and white as snow—suffered the fate of my ill-judgment. For a while I thought my ears were going to fall off any time soon. Fortunately, they didn't—and they lived to see another day to tell the miraculous tale of that thing called Karma.

Now I may not understand the whole concept/ideology/philosophy surrounding Karma (I mean the way Hindus do with all the reincarnation and all), but I have always believed in the fact that whatever you do comes back to you. In fact, I'm not the only one.

Hindu version: "Let not any man do unto antoher any act that he wisheth not done to himself by others, knowing it to be painful to himself" (Mahabharata, Shanti Parva, cclx.21).

Christian version: "Treat others as you would like them to treat you" (Luke 6:31).

Confucian version: "Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you" (Analects, Book xii, #2).

Buddhist version: "Hurt not others with that which pains yourself" (Udanavarga, v. 18).

Jewish version: "What is hateful to yourself do not do to your fellow man" (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbath 31a).

Muslim version: "No man is a true believer unless he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself" (Hadith, Muslim, imam 71-72).

Justin Timberlake version: "What goes around, goes around, goes around, comes all the way back around" (What Goes Around Comes Around).

The earmuff incident is just one of the many Karmic incidents I've experienced first hand. In fact, I have had quite a number of anecdotes that will support all these ancient sayings; not all of them, however, are negative.

When I still was what they call "problem child" (hey, I told you already about my delinquent past, right?), no matter how serious my offense was, I would always find justifications for my actions. My mom had given up trying to teach me verbally the rules of propriety, so she would always resort to playing the toughie by giving me a hard slap on the butt. It didn't work, of course. I mean, so what if I get a few bruises that would heal in a few days? That wasn't so bad. All I had to do for redemption was to pop my big child eyes and apologize; no need for actual change of heart.

My dad, on the other hand, used a different approach. Instead of associating bad results with doing bad things, he associated good, non-material rewards with doing good things. Think of it as having a "moral bank," he said. The more you invest, the more you save for the rainy days ahead. That was my first karmic orientation.

As the years go by this whole idea of a "moral bank" has become the benchmark of my actions. That probably is the reason why I am what I am today.

I may be meek by nature, and may even be too courteous for my own good, but there's a reason why I'd rather give a cold shoulder to other people's misconduct than to engage myself in cheap catfights, dirty trash talks, or bloody blogwars (well I may have, but I did it in style—helluva difference!)—and that has a lot to do with my understanding of how the karmic energy works.

You know in fairy tales, when the good always triumphs over evil, there's really a heady dose of logic behind it (no, it's not just a scheming adult's ploy to terrorize kids). Of course we all hate those frickin' princesses and how they always have to be the fairest of them all, and how those dashing princes have to come all the way from faraway kingdoms just to save them from their ugly step-relatives (which end up either dead or locked up in a lamp or something), and how they allegedly live happily ever after with nary a sign of discontent.

But come to think of it, like the rest of the not-so-fair ladies in the kingdom, they don't always get what they want. In fact I think it's rather unfair for them to be the subject of someone else's disgust for the sheer reason that they're, well, "the fairest of them all." I mean, since when has being pretty and pleasant become such a huge crime?!

On the other hand, I can also understand where the wicked witch's wrath is coming from. For some reason, the wicked ones always have the upper hand in the beginning of the story. They're always the ones blessed with power, authority, competence, machinery, an army of goblins and orcs, and mastery of sorcery and black magic. Still these were never enough to give them the distinction of being the best, the most, and the fairest. They always seem to lose it to a "nice" and "pleasant" country lass who has no real ambition but to kiss the cutest boy in the kingdom. Nice girls always win by default. Come to think of it—it doesn't seem fair at all either.

So why does the "good" always triumph in the end? Two things: One is that those who are wicked by nature have a natural tendency to self-destruct; and two, those who are naturally nice (by fairy tale standards) unconsciously creates an invisible bubble of hope and optimism that sort of shields—or at the very least cushions—them from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes. No matter what the ending is, they always come out unscathed, untroubled, undaunted.

In short, the concept of triumph and tragedy is not in the circumstances we face every day—it’s all in the mind. We all face the same battle every day, and we are all equipped with equal sets of hands and feet. We lose and win every day. We only differ in how soon we stand up and fight back after we fall.

Most people I know say, whether in good faith or not, that I probably fall under the princess category. Whether it has something to do with my recurrent blond moments, I don’t know. But just as how most fairy tales go, princess gracee has encountered one too many villains in her life. And just as how most stories go, theirs would always end with a painful twist—most of the time, it would happen almost methodically and without requiring her to lift a finger. An awful lot has tried; but as they say, you can’t bring a good girl down.

Happy people, as in really happy people, as in happiest-in-the-world kind of people, always have a way of attracting positive karmic energy. Either they are happy because they're reaping karmic rewards or the other way around. Either way, this healthy exchange of positive energy makes them almost impervious to negative feelings such as anger, hatred, envy, and regret. You’d know a happy person when you see one, usually they don’t say or write mean things about other people. They don’t feed on other people's misfortunes. They don’t take advantage of other people’s weaknesses. They don’t desire for something that’s not theirs. They don’t just take what they want at the expense of others. In a nutshell, they wouldn’t and just couldn’t find it in their hearts to hurt anyone knowingly and deliberately.

I am yet to see a truly happy person. They say it’s easy to do good things if you have everything you need right within easy reach. And just the same, it’s easy to harbor a collective grudge to the world when it always turns a blind eye on you. They could be right, but I also think that in the end, the quality of our life and our being is determined by the actions we live by and that it is on how we deal with our misfortunes—and how we manage to keep our values intact despite them—that our characters are judged.

In short, Karma doesn’t make good things happen to good people, nor does it make bad things happen to bad people. It’s simply a system of reward and punishment that we consciously or unconsciously give or inflict upon ourselves. Yes, whether other people know what we did or not, there will be an equal retribution for all our actions.

Of course, even if I didn’t exactly harm anyone by taking that earmuff, I know I should have taken the pains of giving it to the train attendant (even if I knew he’d keep it for himself anyway). So in the end even if I lost my earmuff, I won’t have to feel bad and look back to that day I’ve taken someone else's. And I won’t have to take the pains of writing this long entry and you wouldn’t have to take the pains of reading it through. You see the domino effect now?

But even so, at least I was able to share with you three valuable lessons I’ve learned from this experience which I’ve already learned in kindergarten:

1. What’s his is his, what’s hers is hers. Do not take what’s not yours.

2. Do not take more than your fair share of anything.

3. When you’ve taken something, put it back to where it belongs.

You'll never know what you will lose next time. After all, Karma can be real bitch sometimes, especially when it needs to. But then again, you know that already. In fact you think about that a lot, especially at night when you lie awake for hours all alone, thinking about the good old days long gone.