Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Fortune is Somethig YOU Create

If your ears are itching that means someone is clearly talking about you. If your palms are itchy, that means you will come into large sums of money. Four leafed clovers are good luck. Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back. Crickets bring good luck. If your eye twitches, there is going to be a birth in the family. Pulling out a gray hair will cause 10 more to grow in its place (this one literally scares me and I think it’s true!). It is bad luck to walk under a ladder. If you catch a falling leaf on the first day of Autumn, you will not catch a cold all Winter long. If you drop scissors, it means your lover is being unfaithful to you. AND (ta da) …..my personal favorite…..If you use the same pencil to take a test that you studied with, the pencil will remember the answers! (Didn’t do a bit of good when I was in school!) The list is inexhaustible for the superstitions we create to help us cope with life’s little set backs.

My husband says he is NOT superstitious. Really? Then why don’t you open fortune cookies?

My husband, after receiving a bad fortune cookie, refuses to EVER open one again. He has been true to his standard! I try and get him to open…but he won’t. I even try to open and it and pretend it was for him…but it doesn’t count. You simply CANNOT open someone else’s fortune cookie. It doesn’t work that way. It ONLY applies to the person who opens it. My nieces and nephews say it will only come true if you eat it after you read it (and I don’t mean the cookie part….the paper fortune part!!). I don’t think I will be eating paper any time soon, even if it does mean that I will be “traveling on a far away adventure soon!”

We ate Chinese today and, naturally, we were given two fortune cookies. I placed one on his tray and then one on mine. I opened my fortune and ate my cookie (fortune cookies aren’t even really good. I don’t know why I even eat them. They are only good for the fortunes inside). At the end of the meal….I found his fortune cookie on my tray which was headed for the garbage. He won’t touch them! Not a chance.

He says he makes his own luck. He says that the fortune cookie doesn’t determine his “fortune.” He’s right – of course. But I am simply making the point that by not opening the fortune cookie he is being superstitious!

By the way, taped to his computer is a fortune cookie fortune! He will argue that it is not really a fortune, but rather, a reminder…it reads: “The constructive use of riches is better than their possession.” Additionally, he will argue it is pre-anti fortune cookie era.

He is right (a term we don’t use lightly around these parts). We are in charge of our own destinies. Someone said it best when they said, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” (Who said that anyway?)

We have opportunities come our way every day and if we are not prepared for them, they will pass us by!

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