Does the mention of Friday the 13th send chills down your spine? Do you sidestep the jet black cat that happens to meander into your path? Ask anyone over 8 years old ‘whats happens if you step on a crack?’ and they will happily chime in, ‘break your mommas’ back.’

There are a plethora of superstitions out there today that people not only believe, but put great importance on in their everyday lives. So exactly how do these beliefs effect our decisions and routines on a daily basis? The magnitude can be alarming.

Take, for instance, a man with a superstitious belief surrounding the number 13. He wakes up and turns his head to view the alarm clock, it displays 6:13 am. Driving to work he encounters road construction and is routed along the detour, Highway 13. The man arrives, slightly shaken, 13 minutes late. At the office, he checks his e-mail to find 13 new messages. The last of which happens to contain an invitation to his nephews’ upcoming 13th birthday party.

By this time the man is obviously frazzled, his pulse is rising and blood pressure elevated. He is subconsciously waiting for anything out of the ordinary to occur. So distracted from his normal routine in fact, that the presentation he was to give that day was completely forgotten. The man was subsequently fired from his job of 13 years.

In my opinion, superstitions are nothing more than fear based hype, derived from coincidental happenings that surround a specific place, number, object, etc. When you attach this with a personal experience, it tends to instill fear in people. This subconscious fear is then passed along to new generations of children and young adults who will eventually amend their lives according to the confines of these superstitions. People create their own reality, some out of knowledge and fact, some out of superstition and fear. I would like to believe that the next generation will see through the superfluous fears that are etched into these myths and into the realm of reality based, conscious living.

Your mind is the most powerful tool that you will ever possess. Be careful what you put into it. Superstitions might be fun to hear, however, one should realize what the effects can be, especially if much weight is placed upon it. One final though of wisdom and my own personal mantra for life, ” What you believe is what you shall receive.”