My own made-up superstitions control my life

But it’s okay as they make you better at stuff.

May 24, 2023

For an audio version, click here. This is for paying subscribers.

If there’s one thing I’ve perfected in life, it’s saluting a magpie in public but it not being immediately obvious to those around me that I’m giving military respect to a bird. I absent-mindedly touch my forehead and then brush a few strands of hair away. Because obviously, I don’t want people to know that I’m feeble-minded enough to believe that one magpie equals sorrow and that a salute somehow (don’t ask me how) cancels this impending misery.

This is not my only superstition. Very far from it. I do all the greatest hits. I pick up pennies, I’d never walk under a ladder and I touch wood more than a carpenter. They are all ridiculous. I know this. But somehow these superstitions are not enough and I’ve added to the lengthy list with some of my own invention. Here are a few examples. Enough to give you an idea but not enough for you to be frightened about my state of mind.

The order in which I check the apps on my phone

The first thing I do in the morning is look at my phone. I don’t understand why wellness experts advise against this. They say it causes anxiety but no, there’s already anxiety, my phone just distracts me from it. Some experts recommend stream-of-consciousness journalling instead. Honestly, I’d have to burn it after I’d finished each morning. And who has time to burn diary pages before 7 am every day?

So after I’m woken up by my son, I look at my phone and first I check the time. I’m going off track again but this also bothers me about the wellness people. How do they know what the time is if they’re keeping their mobiles in another room as they suggest? I’d be accidentally getting up at 4 am every day. Every day would be like the time when I was 14 and got up for my paper round and got dressed and was about to leave when I noticed it was half ten at night. I’d only been asleep for about an hour and had somehow misread the time on my clock radio. Maybe it’s just wellness people who are keeping the clock radio industry afloat.

After the time checking, this is what has to happen next. I calculate how much sleep my son has had and how much sleep I’ve had. I briefly panic about how little sleep we’ve both had and how it will ruin the day. Then I check the traffic of my website and see if it’s made any money like I’m Steven Bartlett or someone. Then it’s email, Twitter, The Guardian, the weather. The end. It’s always in this order. I cannot ever deviate from this as something unthinkably terrible will definitely happen to me or my loved ones.

Another phone one

If I’m setting a calendar time or alarm on my iPhone and go past the number I want, I can’t scroll back. Absolutely no way can I do this. Do I want to have the worst day of my life? No. I have to keep going around until I get to the right number again. And if I miss it again? Sorry, around another time. I hate it. I find it incredibly annoying. It would be so much easier to just nudge that number back but somewhere along the way, I’ve decided this would bring about disasters equivalent to the ten plagues of Egypt.

Slippers and shoes

I have to put my right shoe on first. But with slippers, it’s left first. I don’t know what dire fate will befall me if this is reversed but I’m just not willing to risk it. With socks though, there’s no specified order. It’s completely random which goes on first and that’s totally fine and won’t affect my fate. I know this makes no sense.

The ‘control room’

I’ve sometimes thought that the way life works is there’s one thing randomly assigned at birth, for example, the day you put the fabric conditioner in the washing machine before the detergent, and if you do it that’s your last day on Earth.

I don’t know who I think is assigning it or how they know you’ve done it and how they then end your life. Or what happens if you never do it? Are you just immortal? I’ve (clearly) never really thought it through. But maybe the action triggers an alarm in the control room and then they press the end-life button. I know this is nonsense. I know this. But it’s also why I’m not risking that fabric conditioner going in first.

Why I’m superstitious

I don’t know the origin of any of my own personal superstitions but I know why I am superstitious. I had proof of their validity and power at a very young age. I can trace it back to one event in my childhood. I was nine years old and learning the tarantella. If you didn’t reach grade 3 ballet in the 1980s it’s likely that you won’t know about the tarantella. It’s a dance that dramatically depicts in ballet form being bitten by a tarantula. And requires not just a very open mind about a child pretending to dance to their painful death but also a tambourine. This was thrilling as my mum had to buy me one. I had a percussive instrument at home!

I loved it and played it a lot more than you’d imagine a nine-year-old would play a tambourine. One day I was in the lounge, banging it and singing a song. It was the Christmas carol, Good King Wenceslas. Which was strange, as firstly it was summer. And secondly, I was nine. It was 1984. I should have been banging and singing Wake Me Up Before You Go Go or the theme tune to Ghostbusters.

But I was banging along and then I wasn’t banging anymore as my hand had gone right through the tambourine skin. Which was awful as my beloved tambourine was broken and my mum was annoyed that she’d have to buy a new one. So I knew one superstition to be true. It is definitely bad luck to sing carols outside of Christmas.

I have never done it since and can’t bear to even hear them outside of December. I wonder if I’m alone in the painful agony of my son streaming kids’ TV shows and a Christmas episode coming on complete with songs. I don’t want to infect him with my absurdity and demand it be switched off. But also IT MUST BE SWITCHED OFF NOW OR EVERYONE WE KNOW WILL DROP DEAD.

Why superstitions are good

Some will see this kind of behaviour as irrational and exhausting. Fair point. But as an atheist, it’s my form of praying. I can’t believe in God but I can believe in that little control room which activates my death.

It gives me a sense of control when a lot of life can feel out of your hands. And it makes me feel like I’m doing something. I’m not just a passive victim. Viewed from this perspective, it’s possible it can reduce stress and anxiety.

Stuart Vyse, the author of ‘Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition’, agrees unless it’s a fearful, hard-to-avoid superstition like the ones about the number 13, a black cat crossing your path or seeing someone wearing a hat on a zebra crossing. (Might have made one of those up.)

Studies have shown that superstitions can also improve performance in a range of activities as they boost confidence. They basically make you more powerful. Why else would they have lingered for so long?

And who are we to pour scorn on Jennifer Aniston for having to step onto a plane with her right foot and tap the outside of the fuselage? Or Heidi Klum for carrying around a bag of her baby teeth at all times? Or former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanišević who had to watch an episode of the Teletubbies before a match? Because they’re all doing okay. It must be working!

So I’ll carry on throwing salt over my shoulder, not putting new shoes on the table and when finished with a boiled egg, pushing the spoon through the bottom of the shell to let the devil out. Not really the last one! Only joking. As I don’t eat boiled eggs.

Do you have any of your own made-up superstitions? Any things you have to do to avoid bad luck? Please share them in the comments so I feel less alone.