Qualifying for Karma

I'm not really sure that I understand how karma works, but think that the general idea is that if you put out positive vibes in the world then you get them back. My question is whether or not karma works if you are projecting the positivity just to get the return positivity. Because if you do something good and then think, "ooh, I should get some good karma!" isn't that kind of a greedy and negative type of thing to think?

This morning on the bus, a man got off at a stop about 8 blocks before my stop and as he was getting off, he dropped his nice leather gloves. I watched it happen but was too sleepy to react quickly enough to stop him. So at the next stop (one block up) I scooped up the gloves and jumped off hoping to catch up with him to give him the gloves back. I'm not sure how far I would have been willing to chase him to give them back, but fortunately he had realized they were missing and I only had to walk about half of a block to give them to him. Unfortunately, however, I then had to walk the 7.5 blocks to my stop and completely missed my second bus. Did I mention that it's getting pretty chilly in the mornings here and I was not wearing a coat and I was wearing flip flops because it's sometimes difficult to navigate the bus in heels? The man said, "Oh what luck! I wasn't sure I was going to see these again!" Darn straight you're lucky mister! Lucky that I wasn't thinking clearly enough to realize how cold it was before I jumped off the nice warm bus!

So I had to wonder, as I shivered at the bus stop waiting for the next 1L, did karma still work if you did a good deed but then complained about it? Or if you thought, "I'd better get some good karma for this!"

Pocket Susan Advice: Invest in prevention. Taking care of yourself before you have a major issues is going to be cheaper than addressing the problems once they've arrived. A bottle of multi-vitamins, a container of OJ, and some zinc tablets are much less expensive than a co-pay for the doctor and a prescription for antibiotics. Getting an annual dental exam and cleaning may seem expensive, but it's still going to be better than having to get a filling or a tooth pulled or a root canal.