Karma: Yay or nay?

As I sit here, reflecting on the past ten days I've had, I really have little words.  Nothing extremely exciting happened, nor did something tragically terrible.  But I did have a few experiences border lining both.  So here I sit now, in reflection, and I kind of feel like somebody's hit me with boxing gloves of emotion.

It all started last weekend.  

Low: My Saturday night free from performances was taken away from me.  Not a huge deal.  I'm lucky enough to have a job that I love, so really I cannot complain.  Except for the fact I had a date.  But still no biggie. I just pushed the date back to a later time.

High: The date went well and left me all warm and smiley.  Maybe it was the wine, but nevertheless, a rarity for me and first dates.

Low: Next day, my bike was stolen. LOL.

High: A couple of days later it was my birthday.  It's the first time I've celebrated my big day away from home and I was a little nervous for it.  I don't really know why.  I guess I was just unsure of the relationships I built here.  I'm not one to really advertise my birthday anyways so I was a little scared it would go unnoticed.  Thankfully, I had completely underestimated the fact that I work with wonderful treasures of people.  They left me with plenty of surprises.  And even from everyone far away, I felt very loved.  And at the end of the day, I found myself a new bike that's perfect for me. (insert tangent about newfound, therapeutic passion for bike riding here)

Low: I wouldn't let myself ride the bike until I bought a proper lock, so I had to push my few day expired metro card and take the bus one extra day.  Of course, this was the one day the patrollers came on board.  Bloody bastard had no sympathy it was my birthday just yesterday and gave me a whopping fine.

Are we sensing a pattern here?  I could really go on and on, but I doubt we need a daily record of my roller coaster life.

I'm a big believer of the cliché: "everything happens for a reason".  But...why is it that all of these things happen right after the other?  Maybe this was an incredibly unstable week or maybe I'm just more alert to it than usual, but I can't help but question it.  Are these things happening to me because I did something bad to deserve it?  Is it a warning?  My sweet roommate, bless her, said that my bike probably got stolen because I was about to get into some terrible biking accident.  I suppose that's a much better way to look at it...

Do you believe in Karma?  The Buddhist theory of moral causation.  The belief that one action can lead to another.  There can be good karma and bad karma.  Basically, you get what's coming to you.  I think I do believe it, for the sake that it helps me try to be a better person.  I try not to gossip about other people, to give back to others, help people out, treat them the way I want to be treated, etc.  But then I guess it's kind of selfish, isn't it?  It seems like I'm only doing it for the sake of not getting rained on, and not really from the goodness of my own heart.

I suppose I look at Karma as being the "reason" in the expression above.  These things happen because of something bad I did.  But maybe Karma isn't the reason.  Maybe my roommate was right.  Maybe the reason my bike was stolen was to avoid some crash.  Maybe I had a good first date because the last few dates I've been on have left bad tastes in my mouth, and finally I deserved a nice night.

So yeah... enough with this karmic balance nonsense.  Besides, it doesn't really fit in with my whole idea of living in the present, day by day.  Karma is what happens in the future, due to what happened in the past.  I'm not about that anymore.  So come at me, good things, bad things.  Come all at once or not at all.  You're just making me that much stronger.

Pleasantly yours,
Bart

Choosing Happiness

A woman who played a crucial role in my not-so-distant past once told me about an interesting ending to a conversation she once had.  The person with whom she was speaking to, ended their discussion with the words we hear at least three times a day: "Have a nice day."

To which my mentor responded, "It's a choice, isn't it?"

Each morning, we wake up with the option of having a good or bad day and though we may not realize it at the time, it's a personal decision made at that very moment.  I'm not intending to say people should wake up with the sun shining out of their ass, because who really is a morning person anyways?  It's more of...a general outlook.  You can wake up and feel sorry for yourself.  You can count all of your problems on your fingers and toes.  You can bump elbows with a person and choose indecency and forget about any sort of apology.  You can whine and complain and participate in petty gossip.  These are all factors that aid in making up your mind as to the kind of day it will be.

When I start the day with the choice of it being a bad one, if I have the strength to turn it around, I will ask myself questions.

How can my life be worse?  Who can I think of that is having a harder time than I am right now?

But since misery can sometimes feel like the Burj Khalifa weighing over my shoulders, I need to go further:

Can I make a change?  If I am unhappy and have been for a long time, what can I do about it?

Making a change within one's life is something that requires a lot of courage.  We're creatures of habit.  And if suddenly we break the routine of our daily lives, it can be stressful too.  But stress is an inevitable part of life.  And so is unhappiness.  But while unhappiness often pokes it's head into the picture, it really shouldn't outweigh the presence of your happiness.  Cliché as it is, the best metaphor I can illustrate for life is comparing it to a roller coaster.  So yeah, maybe changing your life (changing your job, your home, your relationships, etc.) may disrupt the ultimate harmony that is your "schedule", and yeah it may take a few weeks of discomfort, but in the long run, that little step outside of your comfort zone, that little leap in a new direction, may be what you need to find your happiness.

In all honesty, I think the reason why I'm writing this is because I'm kind of going through this floating transition period.  I have just moved to Copenhagen and have started a new job.  I left behind people that were very important to me back home, but I also left behind a workspace that was making me unhappy.  I didn't even realize just how unhappy I was until I actually left.  I'm living in this new place now and surrounded by new people and it almost doesn't seem real.  It feels like I'm living inside a dream in my REM cycle.  I'm still adjusting.  And for a period of time, it was stressful (packed it all up in one suitcase, thank you very much.) But it's a fresh start and sometimes that can be bliss.

I was talking with my friends last weekend and I told them how happy I was, but that it frightened me.  Too often it has happened to me that in what has seemed to be a happy part of my life, something bad happens all too soon.  And perhaps that's why I'm constantly comparing life to this roller coaster.  Because just when you're up high, at the peak, you fall down faster than you can even breathe.  So yeah, I'm terrified that everything right now is too good to be true and that any second now, something awful and horrific will happen.

Thankfully, I have good friends.  They told me that I need to let myself be happy.  I need to accept and acknowledge this feeling that comes so softly and often is disguised by the bitterness in the world.  Human beings hardly ever let themselves be happy.  Either they are going through a tough time and are thinking "Man, I can't wait for this all to be over so that I can get a break" or they are in a tough time and remembering how easy they used to have it.  So often I look back on my previous years and think "If I had only known how hard my life was going to get."  I think that I used to have it so good.  But was I thinking that at the time? Hell no! At the time, I told myself "Your life is hard right now, but get through it and it will be fine."

So in summary, we believe happiness to be something either in the past or in the future and that makes it so far away and intangible.  The goal that I've given myself as of now, is to accept happiness in, not the past, nor the future, but in my present.  Right now.

I am happy.

The night I arrived, a rainbow came out.  I'm hoping it's a good omen :)

Pleasantly yours,
Bart