One Red Hot Country Mama!

VW Golf – black and white
Originally uploaded by Sigurdur Birkir.

This morning, after meditating, stretching and eating a healthy breakfast I was on my way for an early arrival at work when found that my car had been broken into. I tried putting my key in the lock, but it was tampered with – the vandals left a gaping hole where my lock used to be. I calmly checked:
- the ignition – no sign of further tampering
- my change for coffee – full amount accounted for
- my leather attache case from my sister- it was fine

Unsuccessful thieves – they must have called it a day before they had even finished the job. It surprised me since the car was in my underground garage, of my very secure building in a safe neighborhood in Toronto, one of the safest large cities in North America. I did nothing risky, I did everything right but I was still broken into.

I was at the VW garage and dealership for three hours watching images of poor Anna Nicole Smith, reading a business book and perusing the latest Jetta diesel models on display, then left several hundred dollars lighter and dutifully went to the office. And so it went. I went to work like a dutiful little lamb to begin paying the bill unfairly created by these unsuccessful thieves.

The Athenians used to believe that when they got sick, they were being punished by the Gods. That meant that they were hurt two-times – one for feeling regretful for what they had done, and two for actually being sick. I used to believe something similar – if I lived up enough to what I believed to be right, somehow I would be protected from the things that go wrong in life.

If I was
- smart enough
- loving enough
- hardworking enough
- disciplined enough
- compassionate enough
- healthy enough
- had enough of a sense of humor about things
…somehow I would build an impermeable shell around myself, protecting from painful and expensive happenings. These are my own versions of good but you can insert your own bullet points since this seems to be a common belief. But, how does that work? Who metes out the rewards and punishments? Since I don’t believe that cancer victims, people born in third-world countries and victim of crime "deserve it", there has to be some allowance for randomness.

So – if living up to your own values does not leave you impermeable and safe, what is the point to living up to them? It is the satisfaction of having lived up to them of course. Does that sound like too small a prize?