Lady Karma and her moods...

[adrianh]

Yesterday was an absolutely horrible day. It started off badly and ended off badly. It was as if Lady Karma had it in for us. It was just one of those days where everything and anything that could go wrong did. I ended up going to sleep with a rather nasty stress headache.

This morning didn't start off much better, the wife had a flat tyre so I went off to swap cars. Then two of my employees didn't pitch up for work. So of course I thought Lady Karma will just carry on as she did yesterday. So, I lay up a job this morning for a huge company and start laser cutting, I finish cutting one out of 6 panels I realize that there is a big stuff up. They printed all their artwork back to front. So I phone the customer and explain to him that they made a serious mistake. They didn't believe me at first but the customer asked me to mail him a photograph of the panels. So I mail them a photograph of the panels with the blueprints sort of on top. The next thing the guy phones me back and agrees that they printed the panels incorrectly. They came to fetch the panels and they will be reprinting them tomorrow so that I can recut them. They are paying me in full. The 6 screen printed panels were being done for a company in the UK and they were to be a sample. If the customer accepts the samples then they would order at least 900 units. The customer is overjoyed that I stopped cutting and informed them of the problem. Most companies just f*k aan without thinking about whether the job actually makes sense. Anyhow, the customer spoke with their partners in Europe and they got an extension. They would have looked like right tits if they sent the parts back to front.

And slowly the day started to improve, jobs are starting to get finished, money is starting to come in and things are looking up.

Now I suppose you would say that it is all about outlook but I think there is more to it. Sometimes lots and lots of $h1t happens and sometimes one experiences wonderful coincidences. None of it is dependent on your mood, state of mind, the sins you commit, you good deeds that you do or don't do. It is not based on religion either, good and bad fortune seems to befall religious and non religious people equally. I just wonder what it is that drives Lady Karma so as to dish out good fortune or bad fortune.

[Dave A]

The main thing for a day with a bad start or run, is to kill the expectation that "today is a bad day, therefor expect more of the same for the rest of it."

There's little doubt - you get what you expect most of the time.

[Justloadit]

There will always be f...ups, the attitude you have at the time determines how you look at it. If you always expect things to be good, then you will pick out all the good things for the day, if your attitude is to expect things to go bad, then you will look for all the bad things that occur and overlook any good things that happened during the day.

[adrianh]

I don't agree, some days are simply filled disasters and some days are not no matter how you experience it.

[Dave S]

Today, however, Lady Kharma is smiling on me, I can't seem to get serious about anything, I've been laughing since 4 am...

Definitely rolled out of bed on the right side today.

[ians]

I was in such a good mood this morning with positive thoughts because I got payment confirmations yesterday afternoon from customers, then this morning I wake up to find lots of money in my bank account but 1 returned debt order and a bill for R115, my Standard bank account at some stage last night went R54.26 overdrawn, so they returned my insurance debt order. In one sms my day went from being a beautiful sunny summer day in Durban to a pissed customer, with bad thought in my head, One being setting a goal for 2014, To get just one Standard branch as a customer so that I can get some return on my losses. It is takes me the whole of next year, by this time next year I want just one Standard bank branch as a customer. The second goal for 2014, to move to Nedbank, you ask why Nedbank after I have said in the past that I will never use them as a bank, they where the only ones who would finance my new bus, at the same rate Standard bank offered. Standard bank gave me pre approved finance for R400k, the day I went to collect the bus, I was told that the finance had been declined.

[adrianh]

@DaveS - now lets say you go to the kitchen to make breakfast and the kettle doesn't want to work. You get in the shower and the water is cold because the element died. You then get in your car and find that your tyre is flat and so is your spare. You fix that and go to the shops and you are involved in a bumper bashing. You do your shopping and you get to pay but your card is faulty. You go off to the ATM to draw cash but all the machines are offline. You go back home with no shopping and no money. You get home t find that you've bee n burgled and your laptop with all your customer data and your year long project is gone. You phone the cops and they do not pitch. Now you phone your insurace compay and they say there is nothing they can do until they get a police report. Your wife gets home late because the computer system at work failed and she had to redo a weeks work in one day. She is in a foul mood and doesn't want to hear about your troubles. You go to the back yard and see that the burglar poisoned your dogs and they are all dead. You decide that you've had enough and you are simply going to go to bed and have a sleep. Get get to the bedroom and you find that the cat peed on the bed...

My question is not whether we give events a positive or negative weighting, my question is why some days, weeks, lifetimes are simply filled with tribulations and some not

[Dave S]

Adrian, I get what you're saying and agree, some days you should rather just have stayed in bed. Mindset also plays a big role, you go to the kitchen to get breakfast and the kettle doesn't work, so you just put a jug of water in the microwave and it boils faster than the kettle would have... Turning our negatives to positives is obviously not always that easy, and we, as humans, tend to focus on "what is going wrong" and oftentimes, this instant negative reaction drives us to notice even more negatives. So what's the upside of the kettle not working, well we could still walk to the kettle, we are still breathing, there's still water to put in the kettle, the kitchen is still there, today I get to have breakfast at the Wimpy with a friend, or whatever.

But some days, let's rather just stay in bed, that has it's positives too... ( ). I tend to think that Kharma is a state of mind rather than an actual event.

I can't, for the life of me, think how I would cope with your hypothetical (I hope) situation.

[ians]

Just when I thought my day couldn't possibly get any worse, I have just got word that my granddaughter has gone into theatre for major reconstructive surgeon on her skull, I knew it was going to happen just wasn't sure when.

So if you think you having a bad day today, be grateful, your karma cant be that bad.

[wynn]

Some days you are the windshield, some days you are the bee.

[vieome]

Reminded me of this


A man named Sei Weng owned a beautiful mare which was praised far and wide. One day this beautiful horse disappeared. The people of his village offered sympathy to Sei Weng for his great misfortune. Sei Weng said simply, "That's the way it is."

A few days later the lost mare returned, followed by a beautiful wild stallion. The village congratulated Sei Weng for his good fortune. He said, "That's the way it is."

Some time later, Sei Weng's only son, while riding the stallion, fell off and broke his leg. The village people once again expressed their sympathy at Sei Weng's misfortune. Sei Weng again said, "That's the way it is."

Soon thereafter, war broke out and all the young men of the village except Sei Weng's lame son were drafted and were killed in battle. The village people were amazed as Sei Weng's good luck. His son was the only young man left alive in the village. But Sei Weng kept his same attitude: despite all the turmoil, gains and losses, he gave the same reply, "That's the way it is."

As told by Chin-Ning Chu, in "The Asian Mind Game: unlocking the hidden agenda of the Asian business culture -- a westerner's survival manual," New York:Macmillan Publishing Company, page 182. (1991)

[ians]

And so the day ends well, good news and more good news and it looks like my project will be ready for delivery in morning

[adrianh]

...and so my day comes to an end. I spent the day with a rather bad headache from thinking too much (yes its true, my brain tends to go around and around and the processing lockup actually makes it hurt) I had a sleep for the past three hours and I feel a lot better. I did come up with a solution to my problems early this morning though. The short term solution is quite simple. The long term solution is to learn how to make money, be it through doing business or not!

[IanF]

Adrian have you considered looking for a mentor?
I can't work 18 hours a day, I suggest slowly raise your price by a few percent every 2 months until you are only working say 10 hours a day. Your profit should stay the same or increase.
FYI we charge R4 per minute on our laser plus materials and setup fee. This is going up to R5 per minute next year.

[adrianh]

The problem we face is purely cash flow. We have enough word and our prices are fair given the markets we are in. If I had cash reserves of R100K in the bank then I would be able to buffer turbulent cash flow.

I only have one drive now and that is to make money and it fast....doing business is of secondary importance!