Don’t leave your thongs upside down.
Don’t open an umbrella inside the house.
And whatever you do, don’t break a mirror unless you’re willing to trade it for seven years of bad luck.
I grew up in Brazil.
A place where small superstitions travel through generations.
African, European, Japanese influences mixed together with a long list of strange little rules meant to keep life from falling apart.
On paper these things sound ridiculous.
Yet even today I still turn the thong the right way.
Just in case.
I laugh about it now.
I say I don’t believe.
But the hand fixes the sandal anyway.
Old habits have a funny way of surviving logic.
I believed in these things when I was young.
Adulthood eventually replaced most of them with other ideas.
Science. Probability. A bit of common sense.
Still, I’ve noticed something interesting.
Placebo works.
A ritual.
A breath.
A small gesture that convinces the mind everything is under control.
Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Which makes me wonder if the difference between superstition, placebo, and science isn’t always the ritual itself.
Maybe it’s simply the story we tell ourselves about it.
And even when I say I don’t believe…
I still straighten the thong.
Because every now and then the rational mind leaves a small door open.
Just in case.