No Good Deed Goes Unheeded

Card of the Day:	Reversed Five of Coins
Interpretation:	Normally, reversed cards are "bad". However, the upright fives are bad in the first place, so the reverse is actually good. Prosperity is the key here, but I think it just means a good/lucky thing will happen today.

I believe in karma, to a certain degree. It seems to me that whenever you do a good deed for someone, somewhere down the line that good deed will happen to you. Same with evil deeds. I think that if karma truly exists, it makes more sense to me along the order of "eye for an eye". You get only what you've done. It's like an investment: you can invest money in stocks, but the only thing you'll get back is money. Mind you, karma is probably a safer investment than stocks, but I think the return time is probably longer.

Have you noticed that my posts seem to be based off of the card I've gotten for the day? Well, here's where karma comes in. A few weeks ago, I found a cell phone, with no owner in sight. Well, the good thing to do is turn it in, so I did. Well, last night I discovered that my DSi was missing (did I mention I'm a gamer?), and I thought about the last place I had it. Well, turns out that I had left it in the very same library that I mentioned previously. I get there this morning, hoping someone had turned it in. Thankfully, they had. Strange how things are linked like that.

To be frank, it is probably just people doing the right thing with the least possible effort. I certainly was when I turned in the phone. But here's what bothers me about that. A DSi, with a game inside, is worth ~$190. Unlike a cell phone, it is not easily traceable, nor does it require outside service to use. It's a perfect object to take off with, and it's still a fairly relevant piece of technology (ok, so the 3DS was just released, but I doubt that changes much right now). For all intents and purposes, my DSi should be gone. Instead, I have it right now in my pocket.

I'm not sure that karma is entirely the force at work here (luck probably had a hand in it as well), but it's nice to believe that good deeds are rewarded. I doubt you could motivate humans to perform good deeds all the time for their own sake if there was no reward (we'll not go into the ideal situation of good deeds by everyone, everywhere, all the time).

My theory of karma, while similar to the "eye for an eye" I mentioned above, isn't quite so literal. I don't expect that the exact same deed will return to you. You may not need what you have given to others. What I believe is that the magnitude of the deed will return. This means you can't perform a bunch of small deeds and expect something big to come your way. Of course, a bunch of small things could return, which can build into something bigger, but you can't expect greeting everyone you meet (yes, that is a good deed) to turn into winning the lottery.

Karma (or at least, the popular understanding of it) is perhaps one of the greatest belief systems out there. Yes, it means that people expect a reward, but I claim that karma rewards people at times of its own choosing. You can't force karma. All you can do is keep performing good deeds, and watch as they eventually return to you.

Yesterday's Card:	Reversed Page of Swords
Reflection:	*Sigh* I'm still stuck in my horrid student ways. Why do I suck so much?