I believe in karma.

I believe in it conceptually, anyway. Words are tricky, particularly in the English language where each one has multiple definitions. In a dictionary, you might find this on karma.

(in Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.

There are clearly some deep rooted religious connotations of our blog topic today. I’m not musing that your behavior in this lifetime directly impacts your next one. We need to look a bit deeper for a definition that fits my conception of karma as a natural “law.” From hinduism.about.com:

The theory of karma harps on the Newtonian principle that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. Every time we think or do something, we create a cause, which in time will bear its corresponding effects.

This is the karmic principle that I’m sharing. Karma is energy. Our energy affects those around us and theirs, ours. What comes around goes around. This isn’t a mystical or religious idea. In fact, I trust that karma is predictable and perhaps quantifiable.

Yesterday, I returned from a road trip. As is my ritual, I stopped at the grocery store to grab some animal flesh, fruit and veggies. I was beat from traveling, and the mood of the grocery store reflected my exhaustion. Folks were seemingly moving about listlessly. When I reached the checkout line, I noticed the woman working with a bagging guy. The two of them were smiling, obviously enjoying their conversation. I approached and complimented them.

“You guys have great energy,” I said. “It’s warm and calm. I appreciate it.”

The checker made direct eye contact with me when she responded “I try.”

She obviously genuinely meant it. She puts effort into sharing positive spirit. The three of us talked about produce and such, and I strutted out of there feeling less whipped by the day. On my way to my car, a man seated outside sipping coffee boldly and energetically asked me about my day. I replied and we exchanged pleasantries.

“I’m strong, my friend, you?”

He said he was “Blessed.”

I got in my car and immediately thought about karma as I drove into the night.

I’m skeptical, scientific and proof driven by nature. If you’ve been following this blog, you know we do everything in our power to cite studies and offer up as much objective material as possible on any given day. For that reason, I would never expect you to trust a concept with only anecdotes as evidence. Sometimes, anecdotes are all we have to make our points. Karma isn’t something that can be distilled in a lab, of course. But perhaps we can use those anecdotes to create a hypothesis. I’m going to break down this karma I experienced and see if I can prove what actually happened to me at the grocery store.

Karma is energy. Energy begets energy, positive or negative.

When I walked into the grocery store, my energy was exhausted. I bounced that disposition off of others, and they reflected it back. When I reached the checkout line, my body language had not yet communicated with the checker and bagger, but theirs had communicated with me. Their energy deeply impacted mine. By the time I bounced it back to them with a compliment, our space was palpably positively charged. As I strolled into the night, I was still wearing said charge, and my man felt it. He bounced it back in my direction.

Okay, perhaps that’s not the most scientific of proof. But studies have repeatedly and consistently borne out how much our energy affects others around us. From TIME.com:

Experiments have demonstrated that people can “catch” emotional states they observe in others over time frames ranging from seconds to weeks. When college freshmen are randomly assigned to live with mildly depressed roommates, they become increasingly depressed over a three-month period… Mathematical analyses of the network suggest that a person is about 15 percent more likely to be happy if a directly connected person (at one degree of separation) is happy. And the spread of happiness doesn’t stop there. The happiness effect for people at two degrees of separation (the friend of a friend) is 10 percent, and for people at three degrees of separation (the friend of a friend of a friend), it is about 6 percent.

We may not be able to directly measure karma, but we can measure its effects. Next time you’re out, consider what energy you’re projecting out. It’s changing someone else’s.

Strong mind,

Kap