First of all, I was driving through Anza and as I went by the local auto shop, I saw an old man getting out of his car. There was a parrot on his shoulder. Big grey one. That's Anza!
That doesn't relate to the topic, though. I went to visit my wife at work, and accidently backed my car into the side of a pickup truck when I was parking. It was all around a stupid thing - I saw an open spot at the end of a line, so I headed into it the illegal direction (lesson 1: follow the rules, they're there for a reason!) to save going around the whole thing again. Thus I had to maneuver a bunch to get into the spot (they were the slanty kind). Only, someone else was parking across the aisle from me first - going the right way, good people that they were. So as I was maneuvering, I was watching these people out my windows. It was a mom and a young child, so I was keeping a good eye on them so I didn't kill anyone. Thusly did I bump into a pickup instead of a child. If you have to choose, it's a good choice, but it's a pain.
So I immediately decided I'm a good person and would write a note. I wrote it up, looked at the car and didn't think I did any damage. It was pretty smashed up on that side already in various ways, none of which seemed to be my work. I left the note like a good person and went inside. I asked my wife if I should just get rid of the note, because I could get away with it very easily. My life could be so much easier without it! But no, she agreed that being good is good. I noticed a thing in the car with a last name on it when I was putting my note on the windshield, and she said there's a good chance that it was her coworker's car. So I went home, a little worried. I mean, you can get really cheated in these situations - who knows if he was going to blame me for everything wrong with his car and demand $5,000? Later that day, my wife called and told me it
was her coworker's car, and he didn't care at all. He said it was already all messed up, he didn't even mind if I had dinged it up.
That's karma! You do good, you get good. Okay, so I would've gotten away clean if I hadn't left a note, right? Only I wouldn't have. I would've spent at least a few days worrying, wondering if I was being hunted down, if the car owner had been talked to by the lady who had been parking next to me (and maybe wrote down my license plate...), or somebody from one of the houses nearby. Guilt is the penalty for bad karma. See, I don't believe in magical nonsense like karma. I'm a strict realist. WYSIWYG. This would've happened the same way whatever I did. There are no weighted dice in the chaos of the universe. But my mind is what would be different. Bad karma is guilt.
So do good! You'll feel good. Unless you're psychotic, in which case, do bad, because you won't feel the guilt anyway. Or just do what the voices tell you.
