I don’t remember when it started; the knocking on wood, the 11:11 wishes, the quiet bargains whispered into the dark on nights when everything felt too heavy. I always said I wasn’t superstitious, but the truth is, rituals have followed me for as long as I can remember.
Birthday candles were my earliest magic. I believed that if I kept my eyes shut long enough before blowing them out, the universe would take me seriously. Later, it became the little routines: flipping my necklace around before a test, holding my breath under tunnels, re-checking the stove even when I knew it was off.
A single candle on a dessert echoes one of our earliest rituals: closing our eyes, making a wish, and believing for a moment that the universe is listening. (Photo by Canva)
None of it actually controlled anything. But it made the fear quiet enough to breathe through.
Science calls this the “illusion of control,” the way humans cling to rituals during uncertainty because they make us feel safer. According to research on superstition and anxiety, small rituals activate the brain’s sense of stability, even when the logic doesn’t really hold.
For me, superstition became a soft form of hope.
During the hardest years, when friendships shifted without warning, when school felt like a weight instead of a routine, when anxiety turned small problems into impossible ones, rituals held me together in ways logic never could.
Say the wish.
Tap the wood.
Follow the pattern.
Stay safe.
I used to feel embarrassed about it, like relying on superstition made me childish. But now I see it differently. Rituals aren’t about magic. They’re about meaning. They’re about grabbing onto something steady when everything around you feels unpredictable.
And honestly? They help.
They remind us we’re not powerless. They remind us that wanting things to get better doesn’t make us naive, it makes us human. They remind us that hope sometimes shows up in small, strange, personal ways.
I still knock on wood. I still make 11:11 wishes. Maybe I always will. Maybe I’ll outgrow it someday.
But for now, these tiny acts of hope are enough.
And sometimes enough is what gets you through.
