The Odd number

The number 13, breaking a mirror bringing seven years of bad luck, black cat crossing your path, an evil eye and trimming nails at night, all have something in common. These are some unpredictable effects that are generally unfortunate, and bring about ‘bad luck’ according to the so-called superstitions. Most of us don’t even know why we tremble when Friday the 13th pops up in the calendar, or saying ‘bless you’ when somebody sneezes, all we know is that we have this stuff, as it runs in our genes from several centuries.

It’s a pity to say this, but in almost every region of the world, and in every person, there is some kind of superstition. For example: several sportsmen have fallen into routines or superstitions if it helps them to win every time. A cricketers won’t change his gloves throughout the match, or a football player will drink beer between intermissions, or a coach might be chewing gum throughout the game, only to justify those superstitions can bring the best out of a player or the team, and it does! A few actors don’t even go to their movie-premieres, and this will make the superhit. I agree that superstitions might be a funny thing and makes things go our way, but not always.

If you’re human, then there are hardly any chances you don’t have an exclusive superstition which you believe in every time, and I’m no exception. The biggest and most important superstition I can think of is not doing anything related to odd numbers like 1, 3, 5, etcetera. That sounds weird, but for me it’s a huge thing. It becomes very uneasy when I have something connected to an ‘odd’ number, such as my birth year. Let’s take a cricket match as an example: My favourite batsman is batting, and I would want him to get a big score, but it eventually turns out to be an odd number. This again sounds weird, but I would literally recreate the scorecard and make it through even numbers. That’s how I am so obsessed with odd numbers, they literally get in my head.

As a person who doesn’t believe in superstitions, it came as a surprise for me when I found out about the ‘odd’ number thing. I’ve become so obsessed with being against odd numbers. I’ve always kept an even number of apps on my taskbar, and on the desktop as well. If I finish an article, supposedly on 13th August, I wouldn’t post it on the same day. That sounds absurd, but I completely edit and add pictures, and a thumbnail, but the date of the post will be 14th August. I really can’t explain why, because superstitions are literally unexplainable. Out of my 35 articles thus far, 20 of them have been on even days, but I still mull about changing the others 15 article’s dates, as they’re on odd days! No odd number of a particular thing, or not doing anything major on an odd day, in short there shouldn’t be anything related to odd number at all. I would’ve literally changed my birthdate had it been an odd number.

If superstition was something to be proud of and something that was done well, I would’ve easily topped the charts. My hatred against odd numbers had gone to a whole new level, as I was thinking why did I not start a website and an Instagram page in 2020, instead of 2021 an odd year. 2021 has been largely successful for me compared to 2020, but the addition of the odd number hasn’t made me any happy. I don’t know exactly why, but be it my Spotify playlist or the number of words in an article, it has to be an even number, or the thing is definitely an inauspicious one for me. It sometimes seems that superstitions are ‘stupid’stitions, looking at how stupid they are.

As an OCD person, a superstition is like the cherry on top, with the pressure of having everything done in the correct manner. A superstition means that people are in their comfort zone, as they’re not really exposed to the rough things of the world. The first step to not have any superstition is coming out of our comfort zones, like don’t care if a cat crosses your path, just walk past the thing. Similarly, in recent times, I’ve tried not to believe and implement my superstition of odd numbers. The biggest example being that I finished this article on 15th August, and instead of waiting another day, I posted it on the ‘odd’ day. Come out of your comfort zone, and that superstition won’t last long at all. Do tell me about your weird superstitions in the comments, until next time.

Adios.