Afraid to Say that Things are Better
Normally I am an optimist or, as I like to say, a "realistic" optimist. But there are parts of my life where I am truly a pessimist and I blame this on my upbringing. In my family's culture, superstition played into everyday life A LOT. There were even some cute sayings around them like "Purse on the floor, money out the door." The translation was that you didn't put your purse on the floor because it would cause you to lose your money.
Yes, I am fully aware this is ridiculous. It's as ridiculous as the belief that you shouldn't jump over someone because it would prevent them from growing; that you shouldn't leave the house on Good Friday; that wearing slippers on a cement floor will instantly give you rheumatism; or that you should never - and I MEAN NEVER - go to bed with a wet head. For the life of me I cannot remember why you shouldn't go to bed with a wet head, but I'm sure one of you will comment and remind me why.
For me, the one that I believe and I'm sure a lot of other people believe is that when things are going well, you should never say that they're going well because "they" will send a bunch of bad stuff your way. Who exactly "they" is I have no idea. But, the belief that one should never talk about how good things are going because you'll jinx it and bad stuff will come along is a mainstay in my life. I am sure that I am not alone.
Today I had a conference call with my boss and it didn't do well, but I didn't get yelled at. Instead I got some constructive criticism that I can actually work with. I have to wonder if he read my post from yesterday. Please tell me that I won't have to password protect my journal or censor myself because that would really just suck!
9 comments:
Never go to bed with a wet head because this will make you go blind. At least that's what I was told, never mind how this will actually happen. I know that "jinx" thing too, but I found out that people here believe in that also, especially when it comes to traffic... like never say there's no traffic because it'l get jinxed and you'd be stuck in one :)
Why is it that everything that you do, that you SHOULDN'T do will cause you to go blind? You'd think that there would be a lot more blind people on the earth.
I believe in the jinx thing too. In my experience, it's when I expect the worse that good things happen. And I always thought you couldn't go to head with wet hair because it would give you a headache.
I also heard the wet hair will give you a tumor/headache thing growing up as well in addition to the purse on the floor thing. I really blame the Chinese for all these superstitions. I'm going to make a general stab in the dark here but doesn't it seems that a lot of East Asian superstitions are similar, particularly in countries with large Chinese populations.
oh man! i go to bed with my hair wet all the time. is that why i have such bad eyesight?!?
Back in my previous life and i worked for a nonprofit, we'd go to the boondoks to talk to the native farmers. They don't have CRs (that's bathrooms for you, people born here) so we'll just do our business in the fields. They'd tell us to say "Tabiii, pssst psst (Bisaya)" so we don't pee or dump on the spirits. ANd if we do, it won't be our fault since they have been warned.
accck superstitions drives me up the wall...
With my parent's Filipino superstitions and my husband's parent's superstitions I dont think I ever do anything right anymore. Do this, dont do that...I'm confused...hehe
Freezing Islander --- what does "Tabiii, pssst psst" means?
Sugarmama,
I would think it's the Visayan version of the Tagalog "Tabi po," which I think would translate to "excuse me." Pssst is what you say to catch "their" attention.
Hi, on the comment of going to bed with wet hair. It can give you a really bad headache. I get one everytime I go to bed with wet hair and I have to sleep with a towel on my head or a blanket if I am too tired to dry it all the way.
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