Tempting Fate

I don't believe in fate, I have God as a more sane replacement concept!

Today I was going to reflect on a certain idea, then I was put to the test while writing... which changed the words before they reached the page.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning.

Yesterday I was watching this on TV, and one secondary character said the strangest thing.

She was planning to get married, and said that according to her mother, she shouldn't have kept the reciepts. But she kept them all, the caterer's reciept, the chapel payment slip, the honeymoon reservations... everything. Her mother said that's "tempting fate".

It's like if you believe that things will go wrong (and therefore take all necessary precautions), fate will be tempted to go ahead and make your worries come true.

So, if I was afraid I'll fail, I will.

Yeah, I've heard that a lot, and even seen it on t-shirts.

But isn't that because I was being a defeatist?

Maybe it's because I thought I'll lose, so I didn't give it a real fight, so I lost... a perfect self-fulfilling prophecy  (I made the term up then found out it exists, check it out)

Well the character in the TV show did call off the wedding after all, is that why?

She ruined something by believing it'll be ruined, and that thing directly depended on her attitude. So the logic holds, she could've been directly responsible for its ruin.

Today I was having a discussion with a friend, and I had to ask myself, can one do the opposite?

Can I make something work, because my attitude towards it is that it'll work?

Logically, no I can't!

Because for something to work, it needs all its dependencies fullfilled.

It's an AND function.

She needed many things (AND her atittude) to have the wedding go well, not to mention the whole marriage.

So it's not that simple.

You can wreck something by your attitude, but your attitude alone can't be sufficient to fix something.

You won't run if you don't think you can, but you won't fly only because you think you can.