A very minor incident has provided the
material for an article about how the punishment sometimes fits the crime.
I visited some people a few days ago and was
offered tea. When asked if I wanted any sugar in it, for some strange reason I
said I would have a small spoonful. I don’t know what came over me to make me
say that: I never ever take sugar with tea as I think it ruins the taste. I
drank it without much enjoyment.
When something unpleasant happens, I have
learned to work backwards to find the cause. There is almost always some
connection between the incident and one of the items on my checklist. For
example, it could be that I had been in the company of an energy vampire or had
a horrible jarring shock.
It is worth making similar checks if I make a
mistake or act out of character, even in very minor matters. In all cases, one possibility
to consider is that I am getting back what I sent out and the chickens are
coming home to roost.
By coincidence, two days earlier someone had visited
me and asked for a little sugar in his tea. We were talking a lot about databases
and work and I forgot to put any in; he didn’t say anything and I only realised my mistake a few hours after he had gone!
It may be a relevant factor that my resistance is very
low at the moment. Not only does a tiny task seem like a huge project and a small
setback like a big disaster, but a minor mistake also seems like a major crime and I feel guilty as hell. When I suddenly remembered that he had asked for sugar,
my automatic reaction was, “Oh no, how awful of me to forget!”
Even in the case of very trivial incidents, it
is always worth trying to find a possible cause.
Perhaps I transmitted some signal and it was picked
up and interpreted as a desire to be punished for my crime! In other words, it
was my reaction to what I did - or rather forgot to do - and not the crime
itself that triggered the fitting punishment.
Connecting cause and effect is one thing;
trying to understand the mechanics behind it all is something else.
