Yesterday
I dropped a knife when I was doing the dishes, and it reminded me how a girl I
used to be friends with years ago was so uber superstitious she would refuse to
pick up a knife from the floor. (Apparently this is bad luck; who knew?!) She was
very dismissive of religion on the grounds that there is no proof of a higher
power, yet she regarded old wives’ tales with a kind of paranoid reverence (#irony).
Now, while I respect everybody’s right to believe in what they want to believe
in – so long as they are not hurting other people, nor shoving their faith down
other people’s throats, of course – when it comes to superstitions, I’m
baffled.
It’s
madness, if you think about it, that people can act, even on a subconscious
level, according to such random rules: if I don’t walk under a ladder, nothing bad will happen to me. If I
wait until I’m outside before I put up my umbrella, I will be safe from
misfortune. If I see a black cat but walk around it so that it does not cross
my path, I’ll have a great day.
And
even more bizarrely: if two bad things
happen to me in a row, something else bad is going to happen, because bad luck
happens in threes. What this means: therefore
I accept my fate to have a shitty time and I will sit around and expect that
result, and feel a twisted sort of vindication when it does, even though I’m
really pissed off about said misfortune. Which inevitably means something
bad will happen, because they’re constantly affirming that result to the
universe so that’s what they attract. Ridic!
This
reminds me of Harry Potter (to be fair, EVERYTHING reminds me of Harry Potter),
when our hero pretends to give Ron the felix felicis “lucky” potion before a
major game of quidditch. The potion works because Ron believes himself to be
lucky, and that mindset is what attracts his good fortune, resulting in him
delivering a solid performance on the pitch. Sort of the placebo effect, if you
like.
Although
I don’t go out of my way to walk under ladders I certainly don’t bother to
avoid them. I wouldn’t despair over a broken mirror and I have no fear of the
number 13.
About
a year ago I interviewed a psychologist about superstitions for a magazine
article (a very random story, that one) and he said that the reason people
embrace these rules, even though they know they’re silly, is a desire to have
some control over the uncontrollable.
Holding on to superstitious beliefs also
helps alleviate people’s anxiety over the unknown. After all, we live in an uncertain
world . Sometimes, he told me, a false sense of certainty is more
comforting than none at all. This makes sense. Except, it also doesn’t.
People,
we don’t have a lot of control over what life throws at us, but we do always
have the power to choose our response. In short: attitude is our superpower. And
that is what ultimately attracts better fortune into our world.
In
1944 psychiatrist Victor Frankl was sent to a concentration camp, where his
wife and parents died. It was a life of abject misery, every day a fight for
survival amid unimaginable suffering. And yet, as his exalted book Man’s Search for Meaning details, he
dedicated his days to finding happiness in the most bleak of circumstances. He
wrote: “The last of one’s freedoms is the ability to choose one’s attitude in
any given circumstance.”
So,
tell me again how you think breaking a mirror means your life is doomed?
Yes,
I know it’s not a fair comparison, but my point stands. The course of your life
is not governed by random events that, centuries ago, some old wives connected
with misfortune. Bad things will happen to you, but they have f**k-all to do
with dropped knives. You will be fine, no matter what happens, as long as you
set your attitude. Pick up the knife. Be positive. Be resilient. Believe in
hope. You hold all the cards.