I'm going to give you permission to be selfish. I know - it's an ugly word, it's not the way you should be. True, you should make an effort to share, to be generous, to be charitable. But in one thing, and one thing only, I am giving you a blank check to be as selfish as you want to be.

Do good deeds.

I know, it sounds like some sort of oxymoron. But honest, it's a selfish act. Why? Because it has so many benefits!

Case in point - Last week my fiance (Kara) and I were pulling out of the parking lot of her storage building when I spotted a camera case on the ground. My initial reaction, as a card carrying member of the Dumpster Diver's Association of America (DDAA) was to pull over and grab it. After all, how often do you find a free camera case on the ground?

But this was more than a mere camera case. I could tell instantly by the weight of it that the camera was still inside. And sure enough, when I got back into the car and looked there was a digital camera, a 1GB memory card and a 256MB memory card all tucked away and safe. The camera's battery was charged and when I turned it on I found hundreds of photos from all sorts of special occasions and events.

Kara and I discussed it. What should we do? It was obvious that whoever had dropped it was no where to be found. We could turn it in at the front office of the storage place and be done with it, but then what were the chances that whoever was working there might not just claim it for their own? We decided that the best policy would be to take it with us, call the storage place to report we'd found it so they could contact us if anyone asked, and otherwise see if there was some way to identify the owner.

It was a long holiday weekend, and Kara and I were going through our mutual belongings, donating anything we had duplicates of and throwing out the junk. We forgot about the camera for a couple of days, which means we forgot to call the storage building! So by now, there was a real good chance that whoever lost it would have already stopped by looking for it, and who would think to leave their contact info "just in case someone returns it."

To some of my friends, this was a no-brainer situation. They'd keep it. One friend cited the well known legal case of Finders Keepers v. Losers Weepers.

Something nagged me about this, though. In my production company, Hat Digital Media (http://www.hatdigitalmedia.com/), I use all kinds of equipment every day. If one of my cameras was lost and found by someone else, I would hope that the person would make every effort to find me and return it. The Golden Rule applied here, I felt. Do unto others…

So I decided the only thing to do was to snoop through the pictures and see if I could identify the owner.

As it turned out, the owner was an architect working for a firm right here in Houston. On the camera were some shots of an office space, and included in them were a few rolled up blueprints. Using my considerable Photoshop skills, I blew up and enhanced the blueprints so I could see the name of the company.

Also in the images was a photo of a vehicle, complete with the license plate. I had a friend in the insurance business run the plate and that gave me a name. A cross reference of the name and the firm brought me a match... I'd found my guy!

I called him and he was ecstatic to hear that I'd found the camera and tracked him down. We arranged to meet for lunch the following day.

Now, the story could end here and it would still be a good one. Do the right thing. That's all. But there's more.

Over lunch we discussed our mutual businesses. He told me of some of his firm's clients and projects, and I told him of my production company and some of MY clients. And as we talked he began asking me if I did certain types of work - mostly production work. I said that I did, and at that point he wanted to know if he could contact me to take his firm on as a client!

Not only that, but some of HIS clients could use the services of my company as well!

The moral of the story? That digital camera could have been mine. I found it fair and square. I could have pocketed it and gone about my business. And that would have been all the reward I would have gotten. But instead, I tracked down the owner and now I may have a list of new clients that could bring me years of income!

Do good deeds.

It's like this - even if your motivation may be a bit selfish, eventually it won't be. The tangible rewards for doing the right thing can be great, but it's the feeling you get from it that really makes it worth while. It fills you with energy. It makes you feel like you're more than just alive, you're wired! Doing the right thing, consistently, will bring you profit and prosperity. I promise. So, do good deeds. It's the selfish thing to do.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Editor for ViewOnline Magazine at www.viewonline.com. He holds a Masters in Education and has won numerous awards for writing fiction and non-fiction. You may reach him via e-mail at kevin@viewonline.com. He's selfish in the good way.