Cause and Effect, Karma and Telemarketers

Those who have been following my blog will know I have very little time for telemarketers. They annoy the hell out of me with their double glazing and kitchens and free mobiles and surveys. *

I am ashamed to say that I play a little game called "Let's Freak the Telemarketer Out" whenever they phone. I have been sarcastic, non-responsive and downright rude to these people who are probably hating their jobs more than I am hating receiving their phonecalls. One person who felt the very sharp end of my razor tongue was this poor man who was trying to sell me female cancer insurance. (I didn't know you could GET insurance for female cancers). The bloke must have felt mortified enough having to approach completely strange women regarding their intimate health issues. So me, being me and hating telemarketers as much as I do, gave him a really hard time. I was particularly acerbic.

So last night, when the usual start-of-the-month calls began to come in, I changed tack completely. I was nice to them. I put a smile in my voice, was polite and even cracked a non-snarky joke. I was very well behaved.

I figured that if I want to change my circumstances, I need to change myself. It's the law of Cause and Effect. If I create a negative cause in my life, the effects (whether they emerge next week or in my next incarnation) will be negative - I may even be reincarnated as a call centre worker! By changing how I speak to these people, I am creating a new cause in my life, a different effect, and ultimately this will have an impact on my karma.

In Nichiren Buddhism, we are taught that 3,000 realms exist in a single moment. This means that we have 3,000 possibilities available to us at any given moment in time. That is, 3,000 choices. In any given moment.

We get to choose how we react to something. We get to choose the outcome through our actions. Ultimately, we choose our own karma.

I decided a little while back to develop a deeper respect for my job and the jobs of others, so being nice to telemarketers actually follows on from that decision. They probably get arseholes like me being rude to them constantly, so perhaps once in a while, a friendly voice and a polite tone may be in order. After all, none of these people have massacred my family. They are doing a job, which I would personally find soul destroying. They don't need me to add to it.

Now, I have a deep sense of gratitude to these telemarketers. (Kate has probably just read all this and fallen off her chair. When she comes home I will most likely be greeted with, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife?" It really is me, sweetheart - no body snatchers here.)

I am grateful to them because through them I am getting to transform my karma and they are contirbuting to my human revolution.

And no, this post hasn't been one long sarky tirade.


*We know that we can block these marketing calls. Kate has looked into it, but it would mean blocking incoming calls from overseas. As my family are all in South Africa, it didn't make sense to do that.