Is Superstition Sabotaging Your Writing Career?

“Sarah is the most superstitious person I know.” –one unnamed friend to another, a week ago.

I’m reading You’re Smarter Than You Think by Seymour Epstein. It contains a short, abbreviated “Constructive Thinking Inventory.”

I love a personality test!

I scored in the average range for “global constructive thinking,” which I loved a good deal less.

The problem is that I’m trying to do something, namely have a successful creative career, which the average person fails at. My dream is to make a living from fiction writing, which is really difficult. More than an average amount of constructive thinking is called for.

One of the metrics that dragged down my score was superstitious thinking. At first, I argued with the book. I tend to think of my superstitions as harmless idiosyncrasies. I’m a writer. I’m quirky. I’m whimsical.

Let’s talk about the stuff my friend was referring to in the above quote. Every time I walk by a particular mailbox, I touch it for good luck. I also have lucky socks, and if I need an extra infusion of luck, I’ll sprinkle a bit of sand from a particular source on the top of my head. If I make a wish and toss a pebble onto an out-of-reach ledge and it stays, my wish will be granted. Writing the wish on a particular rock in chalk also helps.

I ascribe to many of the widespread superstitions. I don’t walk under ladders. I don’t meet the gaze of owls, even toys or pictures. (I cover my eyes every time I open my Duolingo app.) I avoid the paths of black cats, even adorable ones. I try to avoid jinxes brought on by talking about how good things are or will turn out.

Harmless, right? Not according to the book:

“Children raised under conditions where they feel helpless are most apt to create private superstitions. Research has shown that people with private superstitions are prone to depression, which in turn is known to be associated with feelings of helplessness.

Why would you want to believe, for example, that if something good happens to you, it will be followed by something bad? That belief, it would seem, would only cause you misery. What can such a belief possibly do for you? It can prepare you for disappointment. People who think this way pay a high price for this protection, for they are generally unhappy, but they are willing to pay that price in order to keep their hopes from being dashed. They are like someone who spends everything he has on insurance in order to be prepared for any possible disaster. Such a person is more concerned with avoiding painful experiences than with leading a fulfilling life.” (page 31)

If I forget to touch the mailbox when I walk by, I’ll have bad luck. If I have a particularly unpleasant day, I’ll never wear that shirt or socks—anything memorable about my outfit—again. If it’s a favorite item, I’ll try to reintroduce it, but I’ll feel as though I’m courting disaster the entire time I wear it. If I throw the pebble and miss, I’ll think, Well, I guess that wish isn’t going to work out for me, at least not soon.

And, when my upcoming book, Sunrise Psychiatric, was accepted by a small press in the UK, I barely talked about it for months and certainly didn’t post about it on social media. I was afraid both of jinxing it and of how stupid I would look if the deal somehow fell apart. So, while I knew that people need to hear about a book numerous times before they decide to buy it, I didn’t say a word, even while I could have been building some momentum for the upcoming release date. I was more concerned with avoiding a painful experience than with giving my book its best chance of success.

I don’t want to un-quirk myself. I think a little superstition adds a bit of whimsy and fun to my life. But, I’m going to try to be more aware of this thinking and particularly of the times when it’s harmful. Maybe if I walk by the mailbox and forget to touch it, instead of running back to it, I can just take a moment and think, Huh, I must be really distracted today. What’s on my mind? Maybe when I do the laundry after I’ve had a bad day, I can look at the item of clothing, think about the bad experience I had and try to forgive myself and the other people involved, and especially try to forgive my t-shirt because it probably wasn’t to blame.

Finally, when I have a goal, a hope, or a success, I can share it, even though it’s scary and it might make me look stupid. But it might not. And if I want to give my dreams their best chance, I have to open myself up to the possibility of failure. That’s just life, and throwing pebbles isn’t going to change it.