It appears that my muse has spoken again! She said I should look into why some superstitions work... or don't.
You might think that these old wives tails are just some useless sayings that just stuck to you somehow.
It appears tho, that quite a few scientists examined the human behavior and it turns out, some of these DO work.
Out of all the things I could find about this topic, the most interesting was that people who are handed a "good luck charm" or are just told by someone that "I will cross my finger for you" perform better than ones that don't.
Apparently these things boost our confidence in ourselves. People who believe that they will be lucky tend to aim higher than usual.
Also, scientists say, people tend to become more superstitious when they are in a stressful situation. This is probably why so many students or athletes have lucky charms.
Of course lucky charms won't help you win the lottery, because that's not exactly up to you. But it can help you win a race or pass a test.
OK, so the good luck charms do work to some degree, but what about bad luck ones?
All around the world, for example, number 13 is pretty much feared. Hell, they even omit having rooms in hotels with the number 13, and some places have the 13th floor basically eliminated.
This superstition is said to be based on religion. On the last supper, for example, Judas was the 13th person to sit down. Also, it can be traced back to Norse mythology, where in a similar way, Loki barged in on a banquet that had 12 people and killed the beloved Norse hero, Balder. (Funny, how similar these are, actually). It is also said, that when they adapted to the new calendar, the Norse named the fifth day after Freya or Frigg. Freya, and Frigg were actually the goddesses of love and sex, so when the Christians came around they probably proclaimed Fridays pretty much evil. (Also, this eventually turned to an even more morbid story, where they said there were always 12 witches and the 13th place was occupied by the devil himself).
In our days, tho it's only a matter of looking for something unlucky. When we were kids we probably learned that Friday the 13 was unlucky, so we just went and looked for anything unlucky that happened on that day. Chances are, tho, that if you go looking you will find something unlucky every day of the year. You spill your coffee, or just hit your finger while trying to fix something with a hammer.
Murphy's law says that whatever can go wrong, it WILL go wrong. You are probably familiar with it too. Like, for example, if you were to think that "Wow, I can concentrate on my studies so well today", the next minute you look up from the book you were reading you will realize that you don't remember one word of what you read. The thing is, when stuffs go wrong we tend to look for a reason for it. While whenever something goes well without any problems you usually don't even spare a second thinking on it. (Look, how graceful I am on ice... than BAM, you run over a few people as you try to regain your balance.)
Murphy's law tends to poke fun of our hotheadedness. It feeds on our negative thoughts, instead of the positive ones. This is why so many people will tell you to think positive. Murhy's law will probably only work, until you realize, that it is you who give it power.
