Relative Happiness

[bigjake_888]

I am starting to carry around a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 in my truck. You see, I believe in Karma. More plainly stated, if I do good to others one will do good to me. I have also applied the concept of "relative happiness" to this idea. Relative happiness is a concept that if I can make a person really happy it is a high level of relative happiness. Effort need not be the threashold of relative happiness. Just because I did not have to work hard to make someone really happy, does not mean it is not a high level Karma act.

So what does that have to do with that bottle of mad dog 20/20? This is where efficiant giving comes in. Some day I am going to pull up to a freeway onramp and find some homeless person there. It will be the middle of winter and they will be wet and cold. Not really in danger, but just uncomfortable. When I pull out that bottle of mad dog and give it to them, I just gave them a really high level of relative happiness. So I am hopping, if I can give a couple people a really happy afternoon that somehow somebody will find a way to make me that happy in my way. Probably take more than a bottle of mad dog. I am thinking someone will come along and sell me a match grade rifle for an off the shelf price or win an alaskan fishing trip..... I guess you have to dream.

[pdxkevin]

Sounds like a good plan for those who believe in karma. Sort of a karma based version of you can catch any fish unless you get your line in the water.

[Jennie@ifish]

During Christmas one year when I was in high school, a girlfriend of mine and I skipped school and stayed home and made cookies. We put them in zip lock baggies with two cookies each. She just got paid from a job, so we also put a couple dollars in the little baggies.
We headed out to Burnside and handed them out.

One obviously homeless person stopped in the middle of the road, obviously drunk and said, "Hey! Girls! There is money in here!" We said, "Yeah! Merry Christmas!" We knew that it would probably be spent on booze, but what the heck. It was Christmas!

He stopped, looked up to the sky and yelled, (and kept yelling) "THEY ARE ANGELS!"

I'll never forget that man.

Jen

[rimrock]

Since it’s not too practical to keep a sandwich in my car to give out as it could be days before one sees a person on a freeway ramp. I keep a bunch of $20 gift cards for McD’s or Burger King… You might want to try that rather than alcohol, if they are an addict you would only be contributing to that – may not produce the good karma you’re looking for.

[Joe C]

A buddy and me were drinking in san francisco back when we were 18 or 19, and my uncle was going to pick us up later. We figured we should get rid of the 4 or so beers we had left first. So we were down in golden gate park and stashed the last 4 beers under some homeless dude's sleeping bag (he wasn't around). We figure he must have been the happiest bum in the city that night.

[bigjake_888]

I used to try fruit. When fruit just started to look like it was heading down the road I would load up and pass it off to the people who wanted "anything helps."

I still think my bottle of mad dog is going to end me up with a nice cold one four miles back in the woods.

I once had a guy drive down a closed road in a canyon I had hiked the morning into so that I can get away from the road hunters. He at least offered me a beer. He laughed when I told him I though the road was closed and said, " I did not see the sign."

[yankemnbankem]

recently, I deposited money into an elderly ladies account at the local bank after overhearing her conversation with the teller about how she was overdrawn but could maybe pay it up later. Well, I payed it up for her after she had left. Not that I would want anything from someone else, it just made my day better. Try this sometime when you think you are having a bad day. Just give to someone else and what you will receive is worth more than anything of this life.