Superstitions

[acadiANNA]

Is it wrong to say things happen in threes? My son told me he could come over for lunch and I cooked for him. Making tea I dropped the tea pitcher and it broke into pieces and had to be thrown away. I took cheese toast out of the oven and burned my arm on the oven door. Then I thought, I wonder what will happen next. The mail came and I had a speeding ticket from Photo Enforcement. Now I know I need to believe in coincidences and not the rule of 3. How can I get out of the habit?

 

[EasterJoy]

Some day, some big nasty 4th thing is going to hit you on the side of the head, and that will be that. Until then, you’ll be held hostage by this foolishness every time two bad things happen to you in a row. You might let go of this if you think about that…

 

[shainski]

The problem with these kind of superstitions is that if you believe them, you just keep open the window until something happens that qualifies as the third thing in your triad. And the rule also doesn’t specify the severity.

Every day we are confronted with good and bad things all the time. But we just take them in stride. But if we are consciously looking for them, then we can count something that we might not spent a lot of time worrying about.

And I have to laugh to myself whenever i hear this in the national media. Usually it involves the death of some famous individual. Then someone says that these things come in threes - so sure enough - within a few days another famous person dies - and then a week or so later another person dies - satisfying the criteria. Now, if a new death occurs, we have to open a new triad to start it all over. (It doesn’t seem to disprove the theory).

If we break a mirror, or walk under a ladder - or have a black cat in our path, now we have something to blame our bad luck on.

But if you were to keep statistics on your life of all the things that happen, you would see that you could make the rule be the rule of twos or fives or twenty-threes.

If that speeding ticket hadn’t arrived - how long would you have kept the window open for some other mishap to qualify? And what severity would it have to have been? If you got a sliver that day? If you heard a friend was sick? What if you found a coupon for an item that you just bought?

 

[Dorothy]

Is it wrong to say things happen in threes? My son told me he could come over for lunch and I cooked for him. Making tea I dropped the tea pitcher and it broke into pieces and had to be thrown away. I took cheese toast out of the oven and burned my arm on the oven door. Then I thought, I wonder what will happen next. The mail came and I had a speeding ticket from Photo Enforcement. Now I know I need to believe in coincidences and not the rule of 3. How can I get out of the habit?

Actually, I don’t believe they happen in threes. Inconveniences happen quite often…but we count up to three and then stop there!

 

[Allegra]

Unless you die in the next minute, there will be any number of good and bad things that happen to you. I wouldn’t worry about counting them.

 

[acadiANNA]

Thank you, Friends, for the insights…which are all worthy of reference and advice taken. I have a very good friend who always states emphatically things happen in threes usually at deaths. That is probably where I picked up the habit. You’re right, there could have been a fourth thing happen that day. I just wasn’t looking for it. Great advice not to be tempted to count. I do want to follow Jesus and was good to be reminded to call on Him. God bless you all. You are greatly valued.

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

Thank you, Friends, for the insights…which are all worthy of reference and advice taken. I have a very good friend who always states emphatically things happen in threes usually at deaths. That is probably where I picked up the habit. You’re right, there could have been a fourth thing happen that day. I just wasn’t looking for it. Great advice not to be tempted to count. I do want to follow Jesus and was good to be reminded to call on Him. God bless you all. You are greatly valued.

Don’t be taking lessons from superstitious friends. I have a friend who once told me “For someone to be born, someone else has to die.” He insisted that it said that in The Bible and implied that one of his friends who was recently killed at that time and the fact that my cousin just had a baby was proof of it. True story.

 

[Miss_Felicity]

My advice is to be conscious that you are superstitious and work toward taking less and less stock in it. What I mean by that is don’t get overly frustrated with yourself, it can be difficult to break habits but actively work (and of course pray) that you will not be held hostage to superstition. I was raised to be very superstitious, I am working on not believing in it and am doing well leaving old folklore where it belongs but when I have a moment of thinking something superstitious I don’t become upset, when I realize I’m doing it, I self correct over time it works. I was even able to accept a pair of shoes as a gift from my S.O. despite being raised that it was bad luck for a relationship. Good Luck and God Bless.