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Friday, July 24, 2015

Superstitions?

According to all reliable sources, here’s the proof:
     1.    Superstitions come in threes.
     2.    Especially when you walk under a ladder.
     3.    Even worse on Friday the 13th.
     4.    But, knock on wood, there is a solution:
     5.    Eat an apple; it keeps the doctor away.
     6.    However, it’s unclear which type of doctor: my hope is that it refers to plastic surgeons.
     7.    Speaking of distorted faces, go ahead and drop a mirror. Why? Who needs luck for the better part of a decade? Kidding…the number seven is lucky so mirror-tossing actually has a reverse effect. Boom.
8.    All four-leaf clovers are stored at the end of the rainbow.
9.    When black cats cross your path don’t look away in fear or you will miss the chickens on their backs: that’s how they cross the road. Fingers crossed. (Side-note: sometimes they step on cracks. Sorry Moms.)
10. Itchy palms mean forthcoming mail related to money, sometimes debits, sometimes credits, or maybe the phone is going to ring or maybe your ears will ring because someone mentioned you on social media. (This one’s still confusing to me because I don’t have Facebook.)
11. Find a penny, pick it up, all day long, you’ll have a penny. Uh oh…this only works outside of Canada.
12. Every sixth Friday at dawn, animals can talk. (A cat told me this.)
13. Problems are easy to solve if you’re an idiot, am I right?

You might be thinking: what is all this horseshoe? Sorry for all the silliness. What motivates superstitions? Why do we humans think and do all these irrational things? Psychologists relate this behavior to the “uncertainty hypothesis.” This is the idea that when people are unsure about the outcome of a situation, they try to find a way to control it. These control-methods may be odd. Nevertheless, they sometimes provide the mental boost needed to trick ourselves into perseverance mode so we can push through fear of the unknown. Or here’s another way to deal: just think rationally. Um, not so easy for us humans, is it? So friends...keep stepping on spiders and throwing salt if you need to. Either way, something will happen. 

5 comments:

Al Penwasser said...

I thought it was eat a bowl of bran, keep the proctologist away.

Mrs4444 said...

I'm sure you're right; something always happens. I remember being quite diligent about avoiding crack stepping as a kid. I'm sure my mom is grateful.lol

ToBlog today said...

You are hilarious! I wish I was superstition sounds like fun almost like daring the universe. Or maybe being irrational might bring back the child in me.

Vinny C said...

I think a lot of "bad luck" superstitions came about from adults trying to scare children out of doing things said that might be stupid, dangerous or undesirable. On the other hand, a lot of the "good luck" ones seem engineered to make people look stupid.

Kerry said...

I think you're onto something when you say that people lean toward superstitions when they face an unsure situation. Damn, I do that myself.

What, you are not on Facebook? You are amazingly pure and my hat is off to you. Truly.

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