Special Times 🦄
What are your personal superstitions?
Four times a day, I get lucky. 11:11 am/pm and 8:31 am/pm. 11:11 is popularly believed to be a portal for manifestation, and I like that all the numbers are the same. I also deemed 8:31 as lucky for me because I was born on 8/31, supposedly at 8:31 am. When I was younger, I made sure to never miss these sacred moments and took them very seriously by setting up alarms on my phone labeled “Special Time 🦄.”
I always wanted to fit as much as I could within those 60 seconds. “Could I please have a kitty or a puppy, a goal in tomorrow’s soccer game, 100% on my test tomorrow, and maybe win a lottery too? Thank you so much in advance.” Unfortunately, my wishing practices typically didn’t guarantee much. I started feeling hopeless after each special time because deep down I knew it couldn’t be that easy. I knew that likely nothing would happen from just asking and asking for things, and I started feeling silly for putting so much effort into this. The alarms were kind of disruptive anyway, and it got annoying to feel the need to drop everything whenever a special time hit and make a wish. Each time one of my alarms went off, it started feeling like a reminder to do a chore. I learned that sometimes, wishing for too many things can get tiring.
Humans often tend to want what they don’t have. But when we focus too much on the things we lack, we can forget to appreciate all the things we are lucky for. And even if we do obtain our desires, we are only filled with a temporary sense of joy before feeling some sort of empty yearning for the next thing. My mom used to say that we should never have any expectations, that way we will never be disappointed. I never 100% agreed with this, but I do think her ideas link very closely to my own about not focusing too much on what is missing and being let down by it. There are so many things in life that are completely out of our control, and I have realized that allowing my own sense of accomplishment to rely on such things can be harmful to my contentment.
I eventually turned my alarms off, and now I just embrace it if I happen to gaze at the clock at the right time. I mean, isn’t naturally looking up at the perfect moment even luckier? Nowadays, when I see 11:11 or 8:31 on the clock, I’ve shifted toward a mindset of gratitude. I try to focus on my family, pets, and friends with feelings of love. Maybe the universe will transfer something with my positive energy. But even if it doesn’t, a minute’s break to remind myself of the beauty of life and the things I am grateful for can drastically improve my mood. Gratitude is truly like a life hack for happiness. Another bonus is that gratitude can help me with anxiety or overwhelm because I can take a step back to reflect on what truly matters to me the most in life and put things into perspective. Before a test, instead of wishing for perfect scores, I can lower my stress levels by closing my eyes and thinking of my loved ones. It helps me remember that this test isn’t really all that important in the grand scheme of things.
Four times a day, I get lucky. Not because there is some spiritual alignment within that time (though there could be, I don’t know), but because I can choose to focus on all the beautiful miracles in life. I get lucky because I have learned how to make myself feel lucky. By learning the importance of choosing to practice gratitude as a regular tool for improving my own well-being and life satisfaction, I can feel glad and fortunate whenever I want, and not just during these special times.
Hi Charlotte,
ReplyDeleteThis is a really really well written and well thought essay. I like how you wrote how you grew from having alarms go off for your "special time", and instead just hope that you see the correct time when you glance at your clock. If I'm being honest, this is genuinely one of the best personal essay drafts I read like all semester, and I don't have any feedback to add. There was good narration, good reflection, and overall just good thoughts all around. I feel like this essay could even be used as an example essay to give other people some ideas. Great essay!
Hello Charlotte! I really like how you used a comparison in your essay, through your mom's beliefs about expectations and disappointments, and your beliefs about luck. Not many personal essays from what I've read, have compared another's ideas and thoughts to the author's. However, that's probably because the author is meant to give their reflection and perspective on the issue, which I think you also handled well here! If I could give my thoughts on one thing that could be improved, could you perhaps give an example of something lucky that happened to you during those times you listed? The essay was really great though and this feedback might just be my personal thoughts rather than a requirement needed to make the essay stand out more.
ReplyDeleteHi Charlotte! I thought this was a very fun but also deeply reflective blog about your experience with these "Special Times 🦄" (I liked how the alarm name became your title). I really liked how you had this kind of full spiral where you started talking about why it was lucky for you as you made wishes and later talk about how it's now a lucky time where you can take a moment to appreciate what life's given you. I know youre over the word limit but if you wanted to narrate/reflect more you could go into when specifically you made this switch from wishing for a bunch of stuff to feeling lucky for what you have (if there was a specific event or reason why other than hearing your mom's advice). Also, in terms of cutting stuff, I think you could cut towards the end of paragraph 2 (where you say how you got tired of dealing with the alarms and stuff), as it's kind of unrelated to wishing for things you don't have.
ReplyDeleteOverall, very nice blog!
The emotional arc in this essay is extremely strong. I like how you implicitly demonstrated your shift from a childlike sense of wishfulness to a more mature understanding of luck and contentment. What stands out to me most is that you subvert how luck is perceived. Rather than something that happens to you, your essay refers to luck as something that happens through attention. In your specific case, you've turned your "special times" from scheduled interventions into spontaneous circumstances. It's more lucky than waiting for a specific minute of the day.
ReplyDeleteThis essay has a great balance of narration and reflection. I especially like the humble admission of the way you used to use these "special times" as a way of asking for things that you wanted. The extra detail about the alarms also shows how dedicated you were to these times. The reflection is also excellent, and as a reader I am happy for the positive shift of these "special times" from time to ask for more, to a time to reflect and be thankful for what you already have. If you wanted to add anything, it might be beneficial to explain why you don't agree with your mom that we should always have no expectations. Is it about a desire for confidence from others (they expect you to be able to do something), or is it something else?
ReplyDeleteGreat essay Charlotte!