We're days away from St. Patrick's Day when we celebrate Irish culture with luck, leprechauns, shamrocks and green beer. The phrase, luck of the Irish, originated during the 1800's gold rush in the United States. Many of the successful gold miners were Irish. The saying implied that their success was due to luck rather than skill or intelligence.
Is there such a thing as luck? Recent studies suggest that luck stems from a positive attitude that keeps us open to new opportunities.
When we were kids, anytime our family ate a bird, my brother and I would split the wish bone to see which of us was the lucky one. As I recall, nothing lucky ever happened to either of us, but we kept the ceremony going nonetheless.
Crossing fingers is another gesture we do for good luck. Knocking on wood came from the British kid's game called 'Tiggy Touchwood' where players claimed immunity from being tagged by touching the nearest piece of wood. Adults picked up on that, and that's how the slogan got started.
Throwing salt over your shoulder is another superstition. In Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Jesus, was portrayed as having accidentally spilled salt. Since Judas was seen as having done something bad, throwing salt over your shoulder would blind the devil who was standing right behind you.
How 'bout the superstition of breaking a mirror? It was the ancient Romans who brought the notion that a broken mirror would bring seven years of bad luck. They believed that only poor health would cause a mirror to break, and the number 7 was the number of years it took to complete a full cycle from sickness to renewal. So, a broken mirror meant you were headed toward a downward spiral that might take you 7 years to rebound from.
I've always been excited to find a penny laying on the ground. The idea that finding a penny brings good luck is based on the idea that metal, regarded in ancient times as being quite valuable, was sent by the gods to protect those whom they favored. Pennies are made of metal, so finding one would bring good fortune. Some also say that if you find a penny tails up, you should turn it over and leave it for the next person or you'll actually have bad luck.
I'm a little girl on the inside, and it makes me sad to think that people nowadays don't bother to pick up a penny from the ground. They think pennies are useless, not worth anything. I beg to differ. If finding a coin brings one a yippee-moment, it's a shame not to believe in make-believe.
Each of us must find little tributaries of fun while swimming the river of life. If keeping a lucky charm in my pocket will put me at ease.....well, then so shall I do. Nothing has to be real to be fun. When one thinks about it, look how many things in life are unreal. Fictional stories aren't real, yet we read them. Unicorns aren't real, yet we buy adorable replicas of something that doesn't exist.
I'm not sure where this is going, but it's the way my brain is laundering the thoughts in my head. Bottom line......if there are ways to bring fun and fancy into our lives, then why should we not do them? You can be sure I'll be picking up pennies till the day I can't anymore. I remember the time when I found a penny, and the gal standing next to me said, "Migod, how can you touch that? You don't know where that penny has been!" About an hour later I giggled inside as I watched her pay for lunch with paper bills and coins. Migod, I thought, she must sanitize her money!!!!