Login Register

What comes around goes around

By KevinRaftery_  |  Posted: February 21, 2013

En route to Newcastle Bus Station where something was lost and something was found.   Warped and negative Karma is the thinking/action that if you should lose something and nobody hands it in; it would be justified that you should then keep and not hand in anything you should find.


Comments (4)

Karma is a phenomena found in Indian religions (Hinduism and Buddhism for example) which in Sanskrit translates to the fact that the action or deed causes the cycle of cause and effect.   In other words, what goes around comes around (or vice versa).

Some are cynical regarding Karma as in they argue that many tread on another for their own personal or monetary gain and nothing untoward seems to happen to them.

This may be the case.

To bring Karma into the modern-day perspective I lost/left a relatively expensive personal CD player on the bus (from Stoke Station to Newcastle) and nobody handed it in.

A few weeks later on another bus I found an expensive mobile telephone and immediately handed it to the by now frantic teenager looking desperately around for it.

Thanking me profusely and exclaiming that 'my mum would have killed me'.  It has to be the right thing to do to hand back another's property.

But what is the conservative estimate in our modern-day culture today regarding who would hand in a lost item and who would not, 50-50 maybe?  

Older people are more likely (one supposes) to hand in a lost/found item.

Then why, do you imagine, some keep people's property that does not belong to them and what does stealing by finding say about the society that we live in?

What is known is that if you do a good turn for another a good turn has more chance of coming back in return.

Well, let's look at the law of Karma in the aforementioned case.  Having lost the personal CD player it could have been reasoned by some that the found mobile telephone was compensation for the lost/stolen CD player; as in it evened the scores.

It appears that some people's lives are governed by the 'I'll have you off; you have me off' warped and negative sense of Karma.

Read more from Stoke Sentinel


max 4000 characters


  • Backdoored  |  February 21 2013, 6:33PM

    Regarding the 'handing in' of something found... to a greater of lesser extent -it does depend on where you found it (or, 'where one finds it'); what it is; and whether it is possible to identify the owner of the 'lost property'? Let's take a few examples just to show the complexity and how it isn't as 'cut and dried' as either Kevin or Karma imply. Finding money in the street -unless it was a huge amount -in a bin liner, would prove very difficult in any attempt to identify who lost it... the odd fiver, or tenner for example -just lying there in the street dropped accidentally? Would that be considered as 'theft by finding'? Conversely, if when opening your wallet/purse, you noticed you'd lost a tenner somewhere on your travels -would you report it to the Police? I don't think so. You'd get a strange look from the Desk Sergeant if you did. ("I lost a tenner Sarg -somewhere on my travels today.... ") So in that scenario -Does Karma say 'finders keepers losers weepers' -and shrug, and close the book?.... Law of averages over a lifetime giving a good chance of 'evening things out.....' ? Now if you 'stumbled on 50 grand in bundles of £20 and £50 pound notes (£50,000) all bundled up securely in a black bin liner -left behind a bush on a derelict piece of land -a local short cut, you might tend to 'pause for thought' -before making a calmer (not karma) decision). Obviously -that amount of money would almost certainly be the proceeds of crime -straight case of robbery, burglary, -money laundering, tax evasion -etc etc. Well then if you failed to hand it in -and someone just happened to spot you picking it up and walking away with it -unawares to yourself -and the Police eventually traced you -and 'connected you to the criminals' they'd been looking for for some time..... It may turn out to be a very expensive 'find'. Or, similarly, but not exactly the same; if you 'hit the buttons' on the cash machine to draw out £50 -and £500 slips into your hands accompanied by a receipt for £50... would you go immediately into the Bank and tell them what had just happened? Banks? Bankers? Lowest of the low... who has any sympathy for that shower ...? They rip you off every day of the year, and use YOUR tax to prop them up when they blunder. Heads you lose Tails they WIN. Did they have Bankers when Karma came into being?

    |   3
  • Soothsayer2  |  February 21 2013, 5:51PM

    stokeandvale I think finding a tenner and keeping it is a little different because where would you hand the tenner in? But if it was somebodies telephone or wallet that is a different matter. Or is it any different?

    |   4
  • merlin1944  |  February 21 2013, 4:54PM

    An interesting reflection on how our sense of responsibility and attitudes have chnage over the years. What we experience now is 'I want I want and therefore I will get by whatever means'. Keeping an item that you find but don't own is still misappropriation and therefore unlawful.

    |   2
  • stokeandvale  |  February 21 2013, 4:26PM

    Interesting article, However finding something is different than stealing something. Example..I steal a tenner from a person,I put my hand in there coat pocket and take it. However- I find a tenner on the floor is that really stealing if I put towards a Curry.

    |   2