A show I’ve been enjoying a lot recently is NBC’s “My Name Is Earl“.
It’s a light comedy show that takes the main character’s interesting simplistic definition of Karma: “You do good things, and good things happen to you. You do bad things, and bad things happen to you.”, and makes a really cool show out of it.
In order to turn his life around, Earl makes a list of all the bad things he did in his life to try and set them right in order to get on Karma’s good side. A bunch of funny situations and stories follow on from that point on.
Other than it being a really fun and light show to end a full work day with, I also like its simplistic approach to things, I myself am a fan of breaking things down to a simple straight-forward formula; I don’t like all the complicated weaving of words to make something sound sophisticated and well thought out, a great idea/conception is a great one no matter how you say it, in fact it’s even greater if it’s so simple to explain.
Anyway, today while out doing our shopping, a question occurred to me, inspired from the tv show: If I created a list of bad things I did in the past and that I had to set right, how long would the list be? What would be in it?
Fortunately for me, I’ve been a pretty good person in my past, and I still try to be one in my present, but that only means that my list isn’t such a long one, still it does exist. Maybe the things on it aren’t that bad, including stuff like not attending a friend’s wedding when I could, or not calling someone I should have, or other stuff of that caliber; but still if it’s there and I can set things straight in one way or another, maybe I should at least try to.
What do you think? Have you ever remembered some of the things you’re not so proud of from your past and thought of correcting them? Or do you think that what’s buried in the past should remain that way? Do you believe in karma? Do you believe that what goes around comes around?
According to Islam, your bad deeds that involve other people’s rights can never be forgiven unless settled down.
The list of things concerning other people’s rights is long, but on top of that is Gossip.
You need to ask forgiveness from the person you talked badly about in person, OR, if your bringing the subject up can have bad consequences, you have to regret what you did and praise the same person in front of the same crowd, to amend the damage you did.
Another bad deed of the same sort is not giving advice to your friends when they need it, or not calling them to congratulate them or support them or if they were sick, or if you even didn’t greet them whenever you saw them. Even when they sneeze and you hear them, you have to pray for them.
Asking questions out of curiosity about anyone e.g. How much did you buy this or that? Or when calling someone, you directly ask the other person, So, where are you? What are you doing? when you in reality don’t need to know the answers to these questions, you will make the other party uncomfortable, and that is considered other people’s rights that we are crossing over.
It is to the extent that even a mother shouldn’t ask her daughter what is she cooking for her husband. Of course unless the daughter and her husband don’t mind telling.
Another example is cheating when buying something, you look into your wallet and choose the oldest money note to get rid of by giving it to the shopkeeper while trying to hide the torn part or so. That is also considered other people’s rights.
The most sensitive deeds are the ones related to other people. Of course I mentioned a sample of the non obvious ones that many people do without noticing. No need to mention things like treason, cheating, lying, scaring, and so on…
Anything related to money should be returned in full even after many years. The money taken, may be returned anonymously if returning it in person can make any harm, but it has to be returned, OR, if that is not doable, the same amount should be given to charities.
Another small note about money related rights.
If you work for a company, you should never use anything in it for personal use, e.g. personal phone calls, copying machine, printer, taking home any stationary, or even extending your lunch break and not making it up.
These are all rights that belong to the company’s owner. To make any of the above listed things, you need the approval of your boss. But if you think that everybody does that, and the boss doesn’t say anything, that doesn’t give you the right to do it. If the boss is not complaining, that doesn’t mean he/she is happy with it.
To amend this, it falls under the money rights, which has to be given back whenever applicable, or if not, an estimate of the cost (personal prints etc.) should be given away to charities.
Saqf, that means we owe Abu Qais money for lunch breaks, and yes ALL of us!! :S
I love that show as well, although, I hardly ever get to watch it these days. I thought the concept was great and yes, like you, I tried to mentally put a list together..
I have a few things I could go back and fix, but I don’t think they’re worth pursuing, as they’re only significant to me.. I’m sure they would mean nothing to those whom I thought I “hurt”.. So, let’s just say, let bygones be bygones.. and Yes, I do believe in Karma.