“The Buffalo Bills might go 17-0 this season!” Connor said admiringly, wishing his flailing Baltimore Ravens had a shot in hell of doing the same.
There he goes again, I thought, aghast at Connor’s tempting of fate. That kid has a penchant for wildly optimistic predictions, showcased by the fact that we’re only a month into the NFL season.
“Their quarterback Josh Allen is on fire, their running back James Cook is killing it, and their offensive line is amazing,” he blathered on. But I wanted to stuff cotton in my ears, saving myself from this heresy.
“Dude, stop! We are only four games into the season! Don’t say that, you are going to jinx them!”
As I reached over to wrap my knuckles on the nearest wood surface, I looked down at my arms to see if I needed Benadryl for the hives I was surely about to break out in.
“Mom, why are you knocking wood? What do you care? They aren’t even your team!” he laughed.
Oh, damn, busted. Why DO I care?
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I thought my superstitions skulked well below the surface. Turns out, they are dancing around in full view, like a toddler playing hide-and-seek.
There I was, admonishing my kid for possibly messing up a football team’s entire freaking season via that all powerful, surefire method of, well, saying out loud that they are going to go undefeated. And doing it from halfway across the country, no less.
That will sink the Bills for sure.
But that’s literally what my brain was telling me. Because that’s the textbook definition of superstition: attributing power to words, actions, or omens to influence events, bring good fortune, or prevent bad luck.
I consoled myself by saying I’m only a little superstitious. I’m not a black cat, broken mirror, rabbit’s foot, salt-over-the-shoulder kind of gal. I’m not like my Polish and Russian grandmothers, who thought a bird in the house meant someone was about to die. Yet under my pragmatic MBA and science-nerd facades lies a mysterious pool of nonsensical beliefs on cause-and-effect that I erratically and unpredictably dip into.
And not merely when my kid starts making overly optimistic football proclamations. I get particularly Middle Ages in my thinking whenever things are going well, but we have yet to cross the finish line.
Back in my corporate days of yore, I remember sitting around a Colorado conference table late into a Tuesday night as we hashed out our final strategy to close an important negotiation. Paper plates with globs of red sauce and leftover crusts littered the table. We were hopped up on caffeine and slightly greasy from the pizza, but had managed to cross everything off the whiteboard to-do list. I sat back to take a breath when the coworker on my left blurted out, “I think they are going to go for it! I think this thing is in the bag!”
In the stale air of the too-hot room, the cheese and mushrooms in my stomach did a somersault. I turned and glared.
Was I surprised when our proposal came back with a polite “not quite, more work to do”? Not one bit. The little bean counter in my head notched another mark in the ‘see what happens when you predict success too early’ column, cementing my aversion for saying anything too optimistic too early.
But hold on a second. Do I literally think that predictive words (or the people who are saying them) have some overwhelming juju, some mystical Merlin-like power to change an outcome for the worse? To utterly derail things like hard work, good planning, and common sense?
Hmmm… no, I don’t. I don’t believe words have that kind of power. So what is it then?
Do I think confidence or surety in an outcome is somehow in bad taste? That we should always be humble and get what we get and don’t get upset? As a human who approaches the world with boldness and energy, that doesn’t really fit me either.
Maybe it’s my fear of disappointment. My penchant for always keeping my expectations low, and therefore having them easily exceeded. Or do I just have lots of experience in the worst, so preparing for the best is a gear I just don’t have?
Looking at my past choices, that doesn’t fit either. I try not to get attached to outcomes, but I often put myself out there and hope for the best. I literally got a book deal by inserting myself into enough conversations. That doesn’t sound like someone who is afraid of disappointment.
So what was I really protecting when I reached for that wood?
For seven years of my corporate life, I traveled regularly to the Middle East.
Decades earlier, I’d learned a tiny bit (shway) of Arabic from my cute Lebanese boyfriend. I’d met Abdallah when he was wedged into one of those tiny desks with the immovable top in the dark recesses of our international university in London. His dark mustache made him look older than his 22 years, but his green eyes sparkled with the energy of a kid.
During a month-long trip to Kuwait to visit him and his family in 1990, my vocabulary increased, my still malleable 21-year-old brain absorbing it all. (Those were the days.)
I could count to ten, ask for a kiss, swear like a sailor, and sing the Kuwaiti national anthem. But the Arabic word he taught me that still sticks with me all these years later is inshallah. It means god-willing. It means ‘I’ve got no control over what’s happening, and it will unfold however it will unfold, by a mechanism I can’t begin to understand.”
When, 27 years later, I found myself back in the Middle East visiting military bases for my corporate gig, I heard this word all around me. Even by those with no religious affiliation. By our Arab business partners. Our American regional leaders. Our multi-national workforce. And the veterans of the Gulf War I worked alongside. It was seamlessly woven into regular conversations. Whether we were planning a site visit, hoping to ink a contract, or even arranging a pickup time for the next day’s flight, a seamless inshallah would follow all remarks about our plans.
This resonated. These were the years immediately following my husband’s death, and my acceptance of all I couldn’t control was growing exponentially. This reminder, that we really don’t control much in this world, felt tailor-made for me.
We hope tomorrow will come, our plans will be realized, good things will come our way, but there’s no guarantee.
I think, somewhere deep in my brain or body or heart, my slightly superstitious knocking-on-wood tendencies and inshallah’s message of ‘what will be will be’ feel like the same thing.
I don’t knock on wood because I think it will change an outcome. I knock on wood to remind myself I have no control. It’s less superstition, more ritual — a physical prayer, a gesture of humility, a bit of a shrug. “I’ve said this hopeful thing out loud, but I recognize the outcome isn’t mine to command.”
So the next time Connor makes some wild prediction, maybe this time I’ll bypass the wood-knocking and respond with inshallah instead.
Not to protect the Bills’ season, but to remind myself of what I believe: we don’t control much, but we can always hope for the best.
Go Steelers!
Sue
P.S. When I woke up last Monday morning to edit this post, I checked the box scores. Sure enough, the Bills had their first loss to the Patriots the night before. Not because of all-powerful Connor. Because life is unpredictable, even when you are one of the best teams in the league. Sorry Bills fans! ;-)
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