No, karma has nothing to do with this $1M good luck NJ story

We humans just love to talk ourselves into anything. Ghosts, alien abductions, lasting marriages. Okay, okay, half of us humans on that last one.

Kidding aside, did you hear the story about the person in Warren County who went into a little store called Paul Mart? They noticed someone had left a hundred-dollar bill on the counter. There were two people in line and one over by an atm. This person found it first; it didn’t belong to the others, and what happened next is being chalked up to karma.

This person turned it in to the store clerk, asking them to put it in a lost and found envelope and keep it aside for the rightful owner. Everyone else around said they ought to keep it. So the clerk did as asked, then this kind customer decided to buy some instant lottery tickets. They used the scanner right then and there only to find out they just won $1 million.

The player said: “I started crying and shaking. I thought if I had taken that $100 bill, I would have felt guilty, and I would have left there and never bought the ticket. I just truly believe it was a test from God.”

Or, they could have done the wrong thing, stayed and still bought the instant lottery game tickets, and been up by $1,000,100 instead of $1,000,000.

This player did the right thing. I’m in no way disputing that. But we have to stop kidding ourselves about good things happening to you through karma. Good and bad things will happen to all of us. Some more good, some more bad. It’s largely a cosmic crapshoot, people. And you know why I’m sick of hearing this nonsense about karma?

Because it’s selfish.

If the reason you do good things is that good will come back to you, you’re doing these good things selfishly. You’re doing good things for bad reasons.

How about you just turn in that hundred dollars or help that old lady find her car or ask that guy if he needs a hand changing his tire because it’s a nice thing to do, and NOT because you’re trying to punch your karma card for some ethereal promo code discount in Heaven. Do the right thing without expecting it to come back to you. Do the right thing even when no one is watching.

The other reason I hate these rants about karma? Sick children. Dying kids. 911. Rape. Drunk drivers are taking out entire families.

If good things happen to good people, then explain why a three-year-old little girl who never had a mean bone in her body is lying with an IV receiving chemo right now. And don’t tell me it’s “God’s will” either, because you don’t get to have it both ways. If you’re good, then good comes back to you? Yeah, go down to St. Jude’s and tell those kids that. Bad things happen to good people all the time.

The karma that does work? It’s not the reward karma. It’s the karma of being kind to someone just for the sake of being kind, and how that will make you feel good inside. Forget your recognition. Forget your karma reward. There’s none of that. It’s a fairytale. The power of being kind even when no one is noticing? That’s the only good karma there is.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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