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in the middle ages folk had the right idea when they warned against
“talking of the devil”. Originally used as a threat against
directly naming God's nemesis, talking about said figure or evil in
general, these days the proverb has a new face - “tempting God”
in the 1300s, “tempting fortune” in 1603 and more popularly
“tempting fate” around 1700. My superstitious forebearers were of
a more religious disposition than me and believed “speaking of the
devil” would actually incite the horned “man”, therefore
resulting in unfortunate consequences
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_of_the_devil).
This
week I've had a very unpleasant reminder of exactly how accurate said
proverb can be. As I clicked on “update”, I turned to a colleague
to breezily comment how awful a computer crash at that precise moment
might be. Having spent a good hour and a half bumbling through an
enormous professional development questionnaire on a website used by
my new employer, I should have known merely verbalising my thoughts
was “tempting fate”. OK, the computer didn't crash; instead, as
soon as I'd saved the document and logged out, I returned to a rather
empty proforma. Being a little paranoid I wanted to reassure myself
my endeavours were safely logged. My actions failed to provide me
with peace of mind, revealing a blank document that in the process
proved I am indeed incredibly unlucky.
On
countless occasions when my luck has failed, my generally ignored
“gut” has often rather cleverly already predicted any negative
outcomes. Today, I've made a personal vow to henceforth try to avoid
stating any such negativity in order to perhaps escape repeat
instances where fate is quite blatantly tempted to shaft me again.
Feeling rather unlucky at present, I have to wonder whether the very
act of writing this blog is already tempting fate?
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