I bought a cake to eat at work and placed it on my passenger seat as I got into my car. I drove for half an hour without incident. As I was about to make a right turn to find parking, an old man abruptly swerved into my lane, causing me to slam on the brakes. The cake jerked forward and toppled onto the floor mat.
I thought, aw man, now my cake is ruined. But as I continued on, I quickly landed prime parking and got to work on time, so I felt a little better.
At work, one of my coworkers had stopped to open the door to let another coworker in so that she wouldn’t have to freeze outside. As he got out of his car, the parking spot he was eyeing was taken.
When he got inside, my coworker blamed the other coworker for making him lose his opportunity to snag the parking spot. If he hadn’t seen her standing in the cold outside he would’ve gone straight to the spot that was taken by…me. I told him in that case he should blame me! We joked about who he should blame, and I said that we should blame the old man who almost hit my car because if my timing had been a little bit off, I might not have arrived in time to get the parking spot. Might as well because he was also to blame for the cake doing a somersault.
Or was he? Rewind to a day winds knocked over my water bottle, causing a spill. My mom said to me that the true reason water spilled was that the water bottle’s cap wasn’t securely closed.
In the cake scenario, the true reason the cake tumbled and got smashed was that I had placed it on the seat, as opposed to the floor. The bags I placed on the floor escaped abrupt braking completely intact.
We often blame others for things that happen, but if we take it in a step, we will see that we played the prominent part. It is important to understand ohr accountability because that is the only factor that can be truly understood, and well as changed or improved in the future.
There is no way to control other drivers or the weather but what I can do is buy a beautiful cake and put it right on the floormat, where it is a little safer.
I think in those instances where I’ve experienced the results of karma that is a mixture of what I did and what someone else did, I tend to hold on to the part the other party played. Why, you may ask. Because I can use it as moral justification for some action that I commit later on either to them or to spite them. Hold them hostage so to speak, til I collect the ransom that is never fully paid. It can just go on and on and doesn’t solve the real problem of my accoutability. To my credit though, I don’t act this way as much as I used to.
On a lighter note:
Uuummm! Child, dat cake be lookin gooood! Girl, I a be openin dat box and gettin all up in dat cake. Just be lickin and lickin that frostin from the lid and scoopin it up wit my fingers, too. I a have that sticky stuff all over my face and fingers, too!!!Yum, yum, yum. I hope you didn’t throw it away, did you? Don’t you make me come up there, now!