Refueling my karma tank

I have a tendency to drive my car to zero. I let my fuel tank run dry and wait until the last possible moment to refill. When I finally pull into the gas station and start refueling air has been compressed in the tank and the gas is rejected. My car believes it has a full tank even when it has been running on fumes. This is added to the embarrassment factor by living in a state that doesn't allow you to pump your own gas. I have to tell the attendant over and over again I really am on empty. One time it took ten minutes to put in ten dollars worth of gas, thirty cents thirty brutal seconds at a time. I guess I should know better by now then to let my car's tank get so low, but what about the tank inside of me? The fuel there is not gasoline but karma, and lately it has been running on empty too.

My Sunday's are usually spent refilling my karma tank for the week walking dogs at the animal shelter. For whatever reason the last few years, whenever I walk dogs on a Sunday I have a great overall week following. Either my attitude is better, the sales are better in my job, and everything seems to click. The last month I haven't been able to walk dogs for various reasons. The last two weeks I've actually driven out there it's been packed with volunteers. I don't know where all these people have come from. What was my secret oasis refueling station has now become a Costco gas station. Everyone has decided that walking shelter dogs is the thing to do and they've hijacked my Sunday ritual. I guess I should be happy people are walking dogs, but I'm also annoyed because I feel I've lost the one thing I could rely on to jump start my week on a positive note. I'm actually greedy about my giving and I want to be stingy on my volunteerism. Why can't these people go do something else?

So now I have to find something else to provide balance and refuel myself. I'm not going to crowd around kennels and wait for dogs to come back from their fifth walk of the day so I can walk them a sixth time. I'm not going to jump volunteers and bully my way back into the dog walking rotation. It's over. I've already been muscled out. The fifty year old ladies who have overrun the shelter on my Sundays have won. Oh yeah, I guess it's about those mangy mutts huh? Yeah I guess they are the real winners. These dogs get more attention now then if they actually had owners. Some of them walk more in a day now then people's dogs walk in a month. It's not a shelter it is a resort. All that is missing are the cocktails with the umbrellas being served to these clever canines.

Even when I am doing good deeds I'm looking for my payoff. The payoff doesn't necessarily have to be bars of gold or fame (though that is preferred) but even just good karma. Something good happening in return for something good I do. It is a quid pro quo system. I do for the universe and the universe in return does something for me. So in the end my selflessness is entirely selfish which probably negates any positivity I'm giving out into the same universe because I'm looking to absorb it right back. There is a word for that but it is not politically correct and would therefore bring me bad karma. My tank is too empty and I can't afford it.