Very superstitious

Find a penny, pick it up. All day long, you’ll have good luck

We all have our little rituals. Things that we do on an everyday basis that gives us comfort—getting down from the left side of the bed, keeping your bags on one side of the desk, wearing your blue tie to interviews, aligning your pens, drinking from the same mug before every exam and more. These could be little idiosyncrasies that we pick up knowingly or unknowingly as we live. We take comfort in these rituals and want to stick to them as much as possible.

We would not like to call them superstitions but that’s what they are. Little acts of habit as a way of reassuring us that all is well. Do we feel open or vulnerable in their absence? Does a slight detour from these routines throw us off kilter? No matter how successful or powerful we may be, we all like to stick to our little habits and it doesn’t take long for these ‘habits’ to become superstitions.

We may not believe in good luck charms and knocking on wood but take away our little habitual comforts and we become nervous and twitchy. Things begin to go wrong and we attribute it to the break in our routine. Game enthusiasts often wear their favourite shirts to a game not only because they love their team, but also because their team fares well whenever they do. And who would not want to give his team that extra bit of luck. Players themselves are known to believe in this. Steve Waugh, the Australian ex-captain carried a red hanky for luck (and there was something about wearing the same cap for his test matches). I also remember watching tennis player Goran Ivansevic (sigh!) often ask the ball boys to return the same ball if he served an ace or scored a huge point with it!

How many of us avoid walking under ladders, fear the number 13, hate when a cat crosses our path? (the cat one is definitely mine). Unfortunate as it may seem, we tag all negative occurrences with a break from habit and look for something to blame when things go wrong. In the replay of minds we see many ‘what ifs’ and realise that if we’d only stick to a pattern, nothing would have go wrong. And nothing ever does go wrong, because we don’t move away from this comfort zone. The last thing we want to do is offend the Gods, so a little ritualistic living is not too much to ask.

Superstitions are our way of keeping things in control. We may not have all the answers and life is too hard to understand. We’ll stick to what we know and what keeps us safe. We need reassurances and if it comes wrapped up in our lucky colour with a four-leaf clover, who are we to grumble. We grab it with both hands and wrap ourselves in its warmth.