I recently watched a telecast with Eckhart Tolle and he made a statement that caught my attention. He said, “Karma is not what happens to us. It’s how we respond to what happens to us. And each response creates new karma.”

As I watch the ongoing unraveling of Anthony Weiner’s political career, it seems like he’s an excellent example of workplace karma as Eckhart describes it. It’s not that he sexted various young women inappropriately from his social media accounts (what happened). What his colleagues find most objectionable is the fact that he lied about it to the press, to his peers, and to his constituency (response to what happened).

Is there something to be learned from former Representative Weiner’s experience besides how to make a humorous headline using his last name? For me, the lesson goes back to karma. If I make a mistake or omit information or engage in less-than-professional behavior, my best response is to own it. That’s how I can improve my workplace karma.

Owning poor behavior, or even “darker” emotions like anger, jealousy, lust, and greed, isn’t easy. It requires an acceptance of one’s humanity and a willingness to ‘fess up. I applaud anyone who can do it. I’m grateful to work with people and live with family members who have done that with me.

May we all become more skillful at creating better karma no matter what happens at work.

Have you noticed that all conversations end up negative? Every time I talk to someone eventually the conversation turns to “it’s so bad, how can they do this” It could be about: health insurance, clean water, global warming, war, terrorism, jobs, cost of gas, cost of food, making less money, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, cutting teachers, losing services, losing your home, losing your job, identity theft, getting sick and paying for it, wall street – how dare they? Etc.

It does seem that we are faced with a lot of challenges at this time, but aren’t there always challenges? What makes this time in history so scary? Is it the uncertainty? Is it the recession?

It’s hard to remember but in times of great challenges there is also great opportunities. I have been trying to catch myself as I spiral down into negative talk. When I hear myself going down the road of “this is not good” I try to change my conversation to something light and airy to bring myself back to possibilities.

So, here is my challenge to all of you. When you start to feel scared and you find yourself feeling negative about the future that is when you must ask yourself: What can I do to help solve this problem?

It’s the dreamers of the world who make things possible. It’s seeing what can be done when it looks like nothing can help.

Read some interesting research today. I learned that retaliating against a boss is more acceptable to employees if the retaliation is an act of no action or omission, than active efforts to harm an unfair boss. I knew this somewhere in my head, but I had to read it to believe it. So this means that employees who are angry with their boss or maybe a co-worker feel it’s O.K. to forget to send an important piece of information or they may wait till it’s almost too late.

This kind of passive-aggressive behavior now takes on a new meaning. There are passive -aggressive people who just behave that way, but now I believe that regular people who want to retaliate have found a way to harm another without being caught.

O.K. I admit to doing this myself, and I’m sure most people have done it, but imagine if everyone at work was really harming one another in a silent war.

In a healthy workplace there is probably very little of this, because in a healthy workplace everyone functions as a team that supports each other.

But, if you are working in an unhealthy work place, this is probably going on all the time. What makes this so disturbing, is that it’s hard to prove that this is happening. So in general this behavior can be very damaging.

Let’s all try to resist the temptation to retaliate by no action or omission. Even if it seems so delicious and irresistible, make a conscience effort to be up front.