Monday-Funday

In these parts where I live, our large population of part-timers have come back to town. My superpower is in its glory these days. Sigh.

At the company Christmas party over the weekend, I was speaking for a while to a young man who works for my husband. This young man is in his mid-twenties and he is a superstar. His parents are immigrants from Columbia. They have worked blue collar jobs their whole lives, and this young man worked to pay (and earned several scholarships) to put himself through college. He is one of the most reliable, smart, hardworking people who have ever worked for my husband. He is one of the most upbeat, happy people I have ever met. At the party, after him telling me that his rent had not gone up at all, and also about some winnings that he had won recently, out in Vegas, I said to him, “C, you seem like a really lucky person. Do you consider yourself to be a lucky person?”

He said, “Wow, I was just talking to a friend about this yesterday. I think that I am very lucky, because bad things don’t happen to me.”

This statement jarred my mommy heart and I started panicking thinking about the fact that unfortunately bad things eventually happen to everyone. “C, do you feel equipped to handle bad things when they will happen?” I asked him with sincere concern.

“I don’t think that I will recognize bad things, because bad things often turn out to be good things, you know,” is what C said to me. Wow. C is a naturally lucky person. He has learned to have a fabulous attitude at just the starting gate of his adult life.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Little Red Vest

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

When Trip, our Boykin spaniel, was a puppy he would often swim in the pool, along with our Labrador retriever, Ralphie. He never loved the pool as much as Ralphie does, but he swam in it fairly often. Trip swims well. He is a sporting dog, bred to retrieve fallen birds in bodies of water. But then, for some strange reason, Trip just stopped swimming in the pool. He preferred to hang out with the boss lady, our herder, the rough collie, Josie, who runs around the pool, barking out orders at everyone, like a frantic, control freak lifeguard who can’t stop blowing the whistle. Trip seemed to have developed a little bit of fear of the pool, seemingly, out of nowhere.

Now, when we take Trip out on boating excursions (Boykins are bred to be boating dogs), we put a little red life vest on him. Trip loves swimming in the saltwater, and the minute one of us jumps out of the boat, he jumps out, too, often landing right on top of whoever is swimming in the water outside of the boat. He never thinks twice about swimming all around in the ocean, which in theory, is a lot more dangerous than swimming around in a little pool, especially with our vigilant lifeguard Josie guarding it, as if she were a presidential secret service agent. Honestly, on boating days, it is often difficult to coax Trip out of the water and back into the boat.

So this weekend, when we were having a fun pool day at home, my son decided that he was going to get Trip comfortable swimming in the pool again. To do so, he put Trip in his little red life vest. Surprisingly, that’s all it really took. It was like the red life vest flipped a switch, and we couldn’t keep Trip out of the pool. It didn’t take any coaxing at all. The little red life vest gave Trip all of the confidence that he needed to become a pool hound all over again.

That got me to thinking about how we all have our own “little red life vests” that get us over our fears of doing things. We put so much confidence into our own “little red life vests”, even if they are just symbolic, like lucky charms. I looked up why we put so much reliance on our lucky charms and I questioned if they really “work.” Supposedly they do:

“Relying on lucky charms is superstitious, but in fact, it actually works. Researchers have found that people who believe they have luck on their side feel greater “self-efficacy”—the belief that we’re capable of doing what we set out to do—and this belief actually boosts mental and physical performance.” – Psychology Today

The study says that people who tend to have better luck after carrying certain items have so because of the belief that they are protected from bad luck. This belief acts as a blocker from failure as people go out and give their best shot without worrying about what they might lose.” – Times of India

Now, I have often heard less superstitious persons than myself, proudly and smugly proclaim, “I make my own luck!” And that is true. Obviously, the studies show that people who believe in lucky charms, get into a mindset that says that they cannot fail, and thus, it is that mindset which helps them to succeed (not the inanimate object). Having lucky charms, is a Jedi mind trick that we play with ourselves. But, so what? Obviously, in many cases (such as with Trip), it works. And it’s fun.

What’s your “little red life vest”? What’s a big fear that you have? Can you find “a little red vest” that will help you to overcome your fear? Just remember to never forget that deep down you have made your own luck. Remember that your little red vest is just a little crutch that you made for yourself, and the power was never really transferred to that placebo pill, or to that dream catcher, or to “my precious” (Lord of the Rings reference). The power to overcome your fears and challenges and move on to your victories was always inside of you, your mind just needed a physical trinket and symbol of that fact, to remind itself of its own great and powerful abilities.

“Luck is believing you’re lucky.” – Tennessee Williams

“You can live a charmed life by causing others to live a charmed life. That is, be the source of ‘charm’ — of charming moments and experiences — in the life of another. Be everyone else’s Lucky Charm! Make all who you touch today feel ‘lucky’ that you crossed their path. Do this for a week and watch things change. Do it for a month and you’ll be a different person.”- Neale Donald Walsch

Welcome, 2019!!

Happy New Year! Happy 2019! Rabbit! Rabbit! Rabbit!

Today, my family and I will eat my favorite meal of the year. The lucky New Year’s Day meal is my all-time favorite, even more than Thanksgiving. Pork, sauerkraut, brats and kielbassi, collards, potatoes and black-eyed peas, make up this yearly tradition. Cooked all together all day long, with the savory flavors blending together, all with the promise of excellent luck in the upcoming year.

This is a tradition my family has had for years and generations and judging by the fact that my grocery store has all of these ingredients readily available at the front of the store, something tells me that we’re not alone. There is going to be a lot of good luck, excitement and hope, wafting around the houses of the world today. Fresh new starts abound!

“What A Wonderful Thought It Is That Some Of The Best Days Of Our Lives Haven’t Even Happened Yet” – Anne Frank

“What The New Year Brings To You Will Depend A Good Deal On What You Bring To The New Year” – Vern McLellan

It’s Your Lucky Day

Not too many years ago, I learned of the superstition that people should say, “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit” on the first day of every month to have good luck that entire month.  Guess what I texted to my family this morning?  Guess what is already written on the first day of every month of my 2019 calendar?  Readers, I think you should take a pause and say, “Rabbit.  Rabbit.  Rabbit.”, right now.

I am a superstitious person.  I admit it.  Some people would claim that being superstitious is silly and unfaithful.  I disagree.  I’m often a very serious person.  I’ve been told to “lighten up” more than once in my life.  I am extremely faithful in the higher powers of the Universe that I call “God.”  To me, my superstitions are just a reminder that there are higher forces taking care of us.  They are a reminder that there is more to this Earth plane than meets the eye.

Sports fans and players are typically very superstitious people.  My son played soccer with a young man who always wore his team shorts backwards on game days.  His mother explained that one day he had an amazing, breakout game and it was on a day that he had rushed out the door, accidentally putting his shorts on backwards.  From that day on, he thought it was better luck for him to play with his shorts on backwards and so he did, for the rest of his soccer career.  I am willing to bet that a majority of professional sports players wear certain items, or do certain rituals before each game that they play, for good luck purposes.

Here’s another quote that I don’t agree with:

“Superstition is the death of a thinking mind.” – Dr. T. P. Chia

If I think that saying “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” at the beginning of every month will make me luckier, isn’t there a good chance that the powers of positive thinking will help make it so?  Or that I will look for lucky happenings in my life to prove my superstition?  This perspective, in turn, will make me feel luckier by seeing all of the goodness in my life, which will only help me to attract more luck and goodness with the positive vibe that I am emoting as a “lucky person.”  The mind, indeed, is a very powerful tool.

I think superstition only becomes dangerous and silly and foolish and unfaithful when it is used in a fear mongering sense.  If I forgot to say “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” today and I believed that it doomed me to bad luck all of November, that would not be a healthy.  Some people might even argue against that thought, though.  Bad things happen to good people.  Often there is no explanation known to us as to why that statement is true.  Perhaps it would feel comforting to think that doing or not doing one of our superstitious habits gave us more control in our lives than we really have, so if something bad happens to us, we have something to blame it on.  “I should have said, “Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbit.” or “I should have worn my shorts backwards.”  Again, our superstitions can make us feel more empowered and secure and those are positive feelings.  Feeling powerful and secure, makes us attract or at least notice, more of the positive forces and happenings in our lives.

People often discount superstitions as “old wives’ tales.”  The older I get, the more I think “the old wives” may have been wiser than we think. They may have understood reverse psychology or the power of positive thinking before it became a book.  Maybe we should call them “old wise tales”.  Anyway, one more time for extra luck – “Rabbit.  Rabbit.  Rabbit.”