Sometimes I believe in karma and sometimes I think it’s a bit of a cop out. Believing in karma is good if it makes you more accountable for your actions. Although, the people I know that practice “karma” as their facebook religion, suggest that it may be a dying religion. Karma is definitely not as appealing when you’re the bad karmee. The other day I’m pretty sure I got a good dose of karma. I left the house with a bad attitude and was served an equally bad day.

It’s hard to not have a bad attitude when commuting in the city.  If smiles are contagious, then bad attitudes are an epidemic here. Crowded subways really test your patience and after five backpack shots to the face and two foot stomps to my already beaten street feet, I had had it. My reaction was my signature tude face and a frustrated mumble. Anyone that knows me knows where I keep my attitude: all over my face. It is especially concentrated in the center of my forehead. There’s no stopping the tude line, although I do apply a secret potion nightly to try to make my forehead friendlier. The irriator responded, “You have a problem?” and I was shocked at this unexpected public altercation. All that came out was, “Ya, your backpack and your feet.” Even more surprised at my rudeness, I got off the train as soon as the trained stop – which was about five stops premature.  As I got off he sarcastically said, “Have a nice day!” and I knew I had been given the kiss of karma.

As I continued on with my morning I realized karma was awake and had her coffee. I got on the wrong downtown train and once the subway emerged from underground I knew I had really gotten on the wrong train. I arrived in Queens about half an hour after I would normally be arriving at work. One downtown and one uptown train later, I arrived at work about an hour late. I proceeded on with one of those work days when you just want to pull your eyelashes out and I received bad news after bad news and thus went my day.

Okay, it really wasn’t the worst of days but the moral of the story is what goes around comes around or in this case what goes downtown comes uptown (and back downtown and then uptown). My day was deserving of my minor karma offense. It’s hard but you cant let the people here get to you. In reality, whatever insignificant thing a person just did to you annoy you (walking slowly while texting, taking you out with their giant bag, or taking up too much space on the subway) is probably something you’ve been guilty of on one occasion or another. However,  the city is full of repeat offenders and in no way is stopping mid-walk and turning around ever forgivable. You must do a u-turn and not an about-face; this is a rule to walk by.

I grew up in a place where strangers smile and a barista is honestly interested in how your day is going. I can’t let the often negative and cloudy disposition of New Yorkers make me lose my friendly street etiquette (I usually save my attitude for loved ones). We all know the golden rule : one should treat others as one would like to be treated. Apparently there is even the silver rule: one should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated. I’m going to go ahead and make the bronze rule: one should not treat others the way New Yorkers treat others.