“Don’t let tarot cards; superstition and fortune tellers dictate your lives.”

It’s actually an advice coming from an old friend of mine Fr. Glen Gomez, the spiritual director of the Christ the King Seminary in Quezon City.

I heard this radio program the other day where hosts are discussing about superstition in welcoming the New Year. We, Filipinos are known for adhering to some traditions handed from generation about celebrating the New Year observing typical practices such as collecting 12 round fruits, filling pockets with coins or jumping on New Year’s eve, for good luck. Not to mention our penchant to resort to soothsayers and tarot readers and the like at the end of the year.

Fr. Glen said we resort to these things because we want to hear positive things about us. And the only positive thing about these beliefs is that we want to avoid bad things to happen to us.

But if Fr. Glen were to ask, he said that everything that we fervently wish is possible through prayers. Prayers and then action, he said. We should not cling on the material thing (tarot card, crystal ball) for power.

If we really want to start the New Year fresh, we should leave old and bad thoughts behind and entertain only positive things.

The human brain could entertain and process 60,000 new thoughts everyday. Instead of preoccupying our thoughts with superstition and gossip, we can create 60,000 positive thoughts (that’s Fr. Glen talking).

I’m not a prayerful person, but I intend to do that (fingers crossed) this year. Leave the old and bad thoughts and grudges behind and entertain only positive things for 2015.

Image credit: Stuart Miles – FreeDigitalPhotos.net