If You Can Shape It In Your Mind You Will Find It In Your Life

If You Can Shape It In Your Mind You Will Find It In Your Life

If you read my blog "Superstitions  Horoscopes  Fortune Cookies" (see below) you know I don't hold the fortunes in fortune cookies in high regard. However, I do open fortune cookies because I like to eat the cookie. 

Once you open a fortune cookie it's hard to not read the fortune. The other day I came across a fortune that got me to take a step back. 

"If You Can Shape It In Your Mind You Will Find It In Your Life"

Sayings like this are in your mind's eye to interpret. I've had many situations in my life where that saying became true. I shaped my career. I didn't just sit back and let happen, I shaped it. I left a technical management position to become a salesperson because I believed I needed sales experience to get higher up in the company - It worked and I found it in my life.

I took a demotion to move from an executive position in finance to get back to marking - I shaped my thinking to find a better life in the thing I loved - marketing. I knew my marriage was not going to lead me to happiness so I put in my mind a life without my marriage - It worked and I found it in my life.

At seventy-three I'm still shaping my life to create a better life. I hope you are doing the same.

Sooo, I guess all fortune cookie fortunes aren't bullshit. I'll probably keep reading them to find the one that can make a different in my life.

Superstitions  Horoscopes  Fortune Cookies

Superstition is a pejorative term for belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any natural process linking the two events

World Superstitions

The French believe that handling a loaf of bread upside-down or placing it upside-down on the table will brings hunger and bad luck to both the giver and the recipient.

Russia, There is a belief that unmarried people should avoid sitting at the corner of the table. They will find difficulties finding their life partner and will not get married.

One superstition held in Germany that if someone has difficulty dying, one may ease the process by lifting up three tiles on the roof.

In China, the color white is associated with death/mourning. It is best to avoid sending invitations or flowers in white, money in a white envelopes are called 'pak kum' usually given to the family of the deceased to help with the funeral cost

In Japan, it is believed that you'll have a short life if you sleep at night with your head facing north. It is customary that Japanese corpses are laid with their head facing north during 'wake' ceremony.

Common superstitions

Beginner's luck

Don't walk under that ladder

Black cats crossing your path

A rabbit's foot will bring you luck

Bad luck comes in threes

Careful with that mirror

666

Knock on wood

Make a wish on a wishbone

Cross your fingers

No umbrellas inside

Friday the 13th

I'm not superstitious because I don't buy into the idea that supernatural causality where one event leads to the cause of another without any natural process linking the two events. What about you? What are your superstitions? Do you believe in them so strongly that you would control your life around them?

When walking down the street do you go around that ladder in front of you? I know you know that superstition is bullshit, but just to be sure, you avoid walking under that ladder. Your attitude is "who knows what could happen - I just don't want to give myself bad Juju.

How many of you keep something in your pocket or wallet that you believe will bring you good luck? How many of you have a money tree in your house? How many of you do everything you can to not break a mirror because you believe you'll have bad luck. How many of you buy into this fung-shway crap?

When I was young there was a superstition that when you're walking down the street you have to avoid stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk. The saying goes "step on a crack, break your mother's back." Could that superstition be any more stupid. I could go on and on with these ridiculous superstitions, but many believe in them.

The fact is that some people are paranoid about some superstitions. They actually let them have an impact on their lives and their happiness. Ask yourself, how the hell can a rabbit's foot or a coin bring you good luck? Do you really believe if you break a mirror or have a black cat run in front of you, you'll have bad luck? What the hell does a mirror or a black cat have anything to do with luck? As a matter of fact what the hell is luck? Believing in luck is probably the most insidious superstition of them all.

Shit happens all the time. You can't control the future no matter how much you plan for it. Superstitions are statement in the future. Sooo, if you can't control the future then how can a superstition which is based on hundreds or thousands of years of folklore, actually have an impact on your future. Get with it people, you know it's bullshit. However, just in case, maybe you should knock on wood if something good happens to you.

You now know how I feel about superstitions, how do you think I feel about Horoscopes and Fortune Cookies. If you said "bullshit" then you know me. I'm not talking about people who read your horoscope by learning about the date and time you were born or in what moon you were born into. I believe that's as much bullshit as someone reading your cards and telling you what happened in the past and what's going to happen in the future.

However, many people put their faith in these Soothsayers. Who am I to judge. Oh, that's right, I'm a normal thinking individual who doesn't believe in faith in the first place (see my previous blog titled "Faith."

When it comes to horoscopes, I'm talking about the ones in the newspaper or other media. Do you really believe that today is not a good day to try something new? Who are these horoscope writers talking about anyway? Are they talking about my 89 year old mother who is nothing like a close friend of mine who just happens to be born on the same day?

You can't really believe that the daily horoscope is correct for the tens of thousands of people (who are all different and born in different years) who read and react on these bullshit horoscopes. Do you realize these daily horoscopes are written by a news writer who was delivering internal mail six months before he or she was asked, by the editor, to write the daily horoscope. If you do, then I know a surgeon who is a master at performing lobotomies.  

Now for those of you who believe in horoscopes, you must believe in the fortunes inside Fortune Cookies. Sooo, let's take an example. Speaker of the House of Representatives in Congress, John Boehner goes to Panda Express to get his Chinese lunch. He gets back to his office in Congress and opens up his Fortune Cookie. It says: "your personality will win over everybody." Speaker Boehner reads the fortune, goes out of his office and runs through Congress waving his fortune while screaming: "I have a personality, I have a personality, I have a personality!!!

Get real people! These cookies have fortunes written by a machine and then stuffed into a weird shaped cookie. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU! However, if your desperate for good news (BTW, there is never bad news in a Fortune Cookie) hold off on getting the lobotomy and allow the fortune to put a smile on your face.

The bottom line is that if you believe in Superstitions, Horoscopes and Fortune Cookies and that helps you get through the day, I'm all in favor of it. However, just make sure you say to yourself,

I know its bullshit, but just in case...