Last Friday I went to the coast for 5 days with my Mum, Dad and my Boyfriend for my first holiday in a long while and, honestly, I enjoyed it completely. Usually on my holidays we end up having one family argument or another, the weather's bad or another unfortunate event happens to come our way to stop me enjoying my holiday completely but this time was different. I can honestly say that from start to finish I enjoyed myself...and that's where my problem starts.
In life we come across many theories of how the world works in a cosmic sense. We have the karma theory (that good deeds are rewarded with good events or good 'karma', while bad deeds are rewarded with bad karma) and the idea of 'balance' (where good and bad events happen complementary to another to keep a neutral balance in the world). Logically I believe that neither of these theories are true, however the side of me that has faith likes to believe at least partially in both of these theories. By the karmic theory, my good holiday was a reward for good deeds I had done in the past, however by the balance theory I am now due a bad event happening to counteract my good holiday.
As silly as my mind is and as irrational as it sounds, earlier today I ended up working myself up into a paranoid mood where I was convinced that something truly awful was going to happen to me because I'd enjoyed myself on my holiday. In the past, I've felt that whenever I've had a string of good events that they've then been followed immediately by bad ones that have brought me back down from any happy high I may have been in at the time. This happened last month when certain events that I'm not at liberty to discuss unfolded. So I've become irrational and paranoid that bad things are going to happen to me, I expect badness in my life whenever I have good things. Is this really a way to live? I didn't think so...and yet at the same time, my fear of losing people or things close to me stopped me from relinquishing this dread that bad things would happen.
Upon further thinking in the bath- as all great thinkers work well in the bath, you should know- I mused that, in a way, I'm a bit of an emotional flagellant in this scenario. For those of you who are unaware of what a flagellant is, a flagellant is a person that physically injures themselves in the hopes that God will take pity on them and bring them fortune. In this scenario I'm emotionally hurting myself, inducing paranoid spells where I'm almost yearning for bad things to happen so that I can once again resume with the good that I want in my life, and that my God here is the theory of cosmic balance. Basically, in a way, I was making myself feel bad so that I could have the universe take pity on me and let me go back to having good things.
Don't we all have these superstitious/religious/spiritual beliefs about the world that hold us back at times, though? Surely I can't be the only one? Whether it's religion, zodiac signs, spirits watching over you, old wives tales or even my friends karma and balance, we all harbour some belief or another...but why do we do it? If we can so easily classify them as 'superstitious' therefore not real then why do we still believe in them? Is it through fear or hope (the thought of what if...what if they actually are real?) or maybe it's a desire to control the uncontrollable? In the world so many random things happen in random ways to random people at random times in random spaces, maybe it's a desire to seek some kind of control (maybe a desire fueled by fear? A fear of not having control?) over these events that leads us to create superstitious systems such as Karma and balance and what, furthermore, allows us to at least partially believe them despite our logical minds telling us they cannot be true.
So what if I were to disregard my paranoia and my fear and go on, starting tomorrow, boldy proclaiming whenever I were happy and enjoying every minute of it. If something bad then happened, would that prove the balance theory? Would it just be eerie coincidence? What if, conversely, nothing bad happened at all, does that disprove the balance theory?
Maybe there needs to be no proof at all, the emotional comfort that these superstitions provide to so many people justifies their existence enough. For me, at least, I think that it can be both a hinderance and an aid at times because, like now, I'm expecting bad things to come my way but, if the situation were at the other end of the spectrum, then it would leave me content that good things would come my way once more.
As a general rule, then, maybe the most exact thing I can say about superstitions is what I've said about religion for a while now: Whether they're true or not, they give people faith in their lives that they otherwise lack and in some way it helps them to function better. Not everyone needs it, but some do more than others, so for them it's a good thing to have in life.
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