Good Karma
I have a story to share from our vacation trip to Florida two weeks ago. Carrie likes to refer to what happened as me “being darn lucky”, but I like to think of it as an effect of good karma.
As we prepared to board our flight out to Orlando from DIA, I took Tobey to the restroom on the concourse one last time. I had on layers of clothes, including a tee-shirt, my favorite Nuggets navy blue sweatshirt, and a jacket. It was 30 degrees and snowy in Denver, but we were heading to 85 degree weather in Florida, so the layers were starting to come off in preparation. I put my sweatshirt and jacket on my seat and Tobey right before Tobey and I sought out the restroom. When we returned, our plane was boarding and it was time to go. We grabbed our carry-on stuff and got in line. The flight was great, but as you may have guessed at this point, I missed one of my layers when I grabbed my stuff to board the plane. When we were gathering our belongings and getting ready to disembark from the plane in Orlando, I realized that my prized Nuggets sweatshirt did not make the trip.
It wasn’t too hard to forget about my sweatshirt for a few days, once we got to sunny Cocoa Beach. We had a great time. Once that final day of the vacation rolled around though, I was bummed again. As we rolled into DIA’s Councourse A a little after 7:00, Carrie suggested I try the airport lost & found, just in case. I’m an optimist, but I had little hope of success. But an optimist has to at least try, right? So, I made a break for it while Carrie and Tobey went to wait for our luggage to arrive. I arrived at Lost & Found at just a few minutes after 7:30, and found it locked and dark. The sign on the door said that it closed at 7:30, so my luck was not great at this point. I figured I would make one more attempt via phone, so I called the number on the door and left a message describing my lost item.
I did not hear anything from DIA so I called the number again the next afternoon. I figured this was my last attempt, and then it was time to “move on”. I had already searched online the night before, but had found to my chagrin that nothing remotely similar to my sweatshirt existed on the Nuggets website anymore. The woman working at DIA’s lost & found took note of my sweatshirt description and put me on hold for what seemed an eternity. When she got back, she matter-of-factly announced - “yeah, we have it.” Sweet! I was so happy I could hardly believe it. I made sure it would be safe for a few more days before I could make a trek out to DIA on a spare lunchhour - as there was a snowstorm rolling in the next day.
So, about that Good Karma title. You see the day before we left, we were at Disneyworld in Orlando. We were looking for the next ride when I looked up and saw a small pink baby hat laying on the ground. No one was standing near it. It would have been very easy to just keep on walking - Tobey was pulling on my leg for something and it was a hot, hot day. But, is that good karma? No! So, I looked around a bit and saw a couple strolling away from the hat, with a baby girl in a stroller. I grabbed the hat and approached them, and they graciously said it was theirs and thanked me with that bewildered, “we have a baby and we’re just trying to take care of her and breathe when there is time” look in their eyes. That’s good karma - looking out for, and doing something nice for your fellow man/woman. Then, just the next day, I was the recipient of good karma when I found my sweatshirt was turned into lost & found rather than claimed by someone else or tossed in the trash.
So, the moral of the story is that I believe in good karma and I hope you do or will too. I also believe this has nothing to do with religion or the God that you believe in. I think God is too busy to enforce something as mundane as “karma”, but God sure could have put the concept in place.. to help us humans be more motivated to treat each other nicely and look out for each other. It’s a tough world, and the more people that believe in and practice good karma the better! So, next time you are stuck in traffic, go ahead and let that car pull in in front of you, or hold that door open a little longer at the post office when you see someone in the parking lot with a full load of packages… just don’t be surprised when someone returns the favor down the road for you!
November 7th, 2007 at 10:21 am
HI!
I too beleive in Karma, and “whats goes around comes around” and can easily trace the blessings I’ve received to the ones given. Nice to talk to an Alan Switzer and not be talking to myself!
Al