Age: 21. We visited a lady, who in English terms, may be referred to as a priest…with a twist.

Side note/my understanding: many hindus believe in the “evil-eye.” An idea not lost in many religions but most likely named differently. The evil-eye occurs when someone is envious or jealous of something you have. To prevent or block this evil-eye one would either visit a priest and perform certain fasts or pray accordingly.

I was 21. And fascinated by this part of my religion I knew very little about I went with my parents to this priest. As she was picking up on my vibes (whatever she picked up about me was correct – enough to scare me I tell you), she tsk’d and said, “yes, my child, you have a dark cloud over you.” (I never asked the question). Fasts and prayers to follow.

Second side note: While I may not believe in or understand everything regarding my religion (it’s extensive and for me, better understood as a way of life than an actual religion), I do believe that envy and jealousy releases negativity and to wish negativity upon anyone would only bring it back round to the well-wisher. In my mind, this is how the evil-eye makes sense.

For years thereafter I was convinced that bad luck was following me around. In fact, all it did was seal the fact that I knew I was bad luck. It explained so many things that occurred during my childhood; the reason for all the tension in our home, my short-temper; the vacillating between outwardly happy and internally angry and the inability to let my guard down because if something good had just happened; trust me something bad was just around the corner…stuck inbetween this wanting to live as I wanted and living as what I thought was expected.
When I was younger, I blamed myself for nearly everything that had gone wrong…”if only I was less argumentative,” “if only I listened more,” “if only I paid more attention to what everyone else needed,” “if only I didn’t act so selfishly” and visiting the priest solidified my childhood idea that I was the problem. The cause. Not the solution.

So why share this with you?

Because it took a life changing moment last year and many stories and books for me to understand that there is no such thing as a person being bad or even good luck. I do not even believe in good or bad people and I’m stuck on this idea of having good or bad intentions. There are humans who make decisions out of fear, previous experiences or what they believe to be the best choice and at every moment, their decision impacts my decision and more specifically my decision on how to react.

I could decide if I was going to accept something and drown in misery (I mean, I was bad luck after all) or I could instead accept that every moment in life is temporary and yes, there will be many good moments and yes, there will be bad moments too.
So what is the difference between the two?
The difference lies in our ability to respond for the better; to search for the positive while accepting the negative. And that’s how we change our luck and more importantly ourselves.