Effectiveness This may be related to karma, since I refer to actions and consequences, but I wanted to draw it down and correlate it our daily lives and routine behavior. While karma may work like double-entry bookkeeping on a grand scale, we don't have the details of all those debits and credits or where we stand, except as it's evidenced in the ease of our lives or seeming luck. As thinking beings, we can still work on the account, but mostly by comparing actions to their effectiveness on ourselves and each other. That was a mouthful. Here's an example: Traffic used to anger me, frequently. It was classic road rage. I'd get hopping mad at people who left their turn signals on for miles or drove too slowly in the fast lane or cut me off at some intersection. I'd curse and fume at them, sometimes honking my horn or pounding my steering wheel. You know what? I don't think I changed the driving habits of any of them. All I did was get my temper and blood pressure boiling over. So, my actions were having no effect on anyone but me. I was passing out debits and getting no credit. There was no return on my investment. All I did was make myself more miserable. There may be a general ill effect of releasing such malificent energy as well. There is value in venting, at times, but when it's a frequent activity on the same issue and you still feel no relief or positive change, is it smart to keep investing? I finally realized that since I was the only person being changed by my anger in traffic, I should quit it. At first I had to consciously force myself to calm down. Patience is not one of my natural attributes so there was a bit of work in developing it for this application. I could not change the other drivers.The aggravation was still there. So, I changed me. It's the essence of the Serenity Prayer. Accept what you cannot change. Change the things you can. Use wisdom to know the difference. Bear in mind that I didn't deny my anger, nor bury it. I devised a way to spend that energy otherwise. You could call this one my 'filing ritual.' For a while, I kept an emery board in my glove compartment. I did a whole lot of nail filing until I learned patience in traffic. Somehow the grating and grit seemed an appropriate method for exorcising my traffic attitude demons. Now on the positive side of this kind of scenario, I often perform random acts of kindness. This concept has gained much press and favor lately. Believe it or not, acts of kindness have a much better chance of effecting change than acts of anger. Do you know why? Because acts of kindness follow the natural principles of the universe. Doing a nice thing for someone, whether or not they deserve it or even notice, is cooperation with the stream of energy and its positive, forward flow. Doing something in anger may be going against the stream. Again, it depends on the reason for the action, but generally any negative action is going in the wrong direction. It will meet resistance. It is less likely to have an effect. If it does have an effect then you will likely have to pay the toll for it. It's really easier and feels better to just go with the flow. Thus I ponder how I go about my daily business. I consider myself and my effect on those around me, as well as what sort of energy I am expending, drawing or releasing. If I am having no effect, then I'm wasting energy. If I'm having ill effect, then I will have to pay for the energy I've used. If I put my energy into use for sharing light and positive action or even just good thoughts, then it seems I would be adding to the general harmonious stream of energy and helping move us all forward. I like that sort of easy efficiency and I'm more apt to get a favorable charge when I need a little push myself. (Effectiveness)

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