Karma, Kramer

Karma:  A force or law of nature which causes one to reap what one sows; destiny; fate.

I've been talking frequently with a friend of mine in The Program who has been sober a good, long.  He's a decent man and a solid fellow traveler in sobriety, and I like and respect him a lot.  One of his endearing qualities is that he admits to some human frailty - this is not always the case with people who have a lot of clean time under their belt.  There is a certain amount of preaching from the high mountaintop among the Long Timers.  Not all of them - not most of them - but some of them.  This guy doesn't do that.  I congratulated him on an anniversary north of 30 years a while back and he said, after a pause: "You know, Seaweed - I thought I'd be a lot further along than I am."  It was part joke, part hard truth.

Anyway, he is less well off financially than I am so he's been bouncing some money ideas off of me to see if I have any insights that might be helpful.  I have plenty of insights, good insights, but whether they're actually helpful is a matter of considerable doubt.  He's old enough to collect social security but it isn't enough for him to live on comfortably.  Fair enough and very frustrating and not at all uncommon.

Then he mentions that when he was younger and working a lot more that because of the cash nature of his business he would declare half of what he made, maybe a third sometimes, to lessen his tax burden.  I don't judge people and how they live their lives and what I mean there is "Are you fucking kidding me - you judge everybody about everything and no matter is too trivial to spark outrageous, self-righteous indignation on your part."  That being said I do understand why some people are frustrated when they ponder our tax code, believing that they're paying more than their fair share while others get off lightly.  I didn't perform those kinds of shenanigans but I did - I do - things that others might not view in a favorable light.

Anyway, here's the rub - because he declared so much less money than he actually made he paid a lot less money into our retirement system than he would have if the number he declared was actually . . . you know . . . accurate . . . with the result being that now he's collecting a much smaller paycheck and finding it isn't enough to live on.

Karma, baby.  Sometimes the easy way out at the time leads to consequences.  I think of this truth often.  I think of when I'm pondering an easy out with a lie.  The bad behavior sometimes allows me to get away with something but just as often it causes more complications down the road.