“I was parked in a 2-hour parking zone for 4 hours and didn’t get a ticket! Today’s my lucky day. Maybe I should go buy a lotto ticket!”  No. You didn’t get a parking ticket, because the meter maid didn’t go down that block, didn’t notice that you had been there so long, or was just feeling lazy. Not because you have ‘good luck’. 

     Luck (whether it be ‘good luck’ or ‘bad luck’) is simply not a real thing. Sometimes, you get a great job that you weren’t necessarily qualified for. Perhaps the person who interviewed you just really, really liked you and thought you were a great fit for the position, or maybe they were just desperate for someone to start right away. Sometimes, you get stuck in an elevator, get into a fender bender, get a speeding ticket, or catch the flu. Every once in awhile, you meet a person who ends up being a very important person in your life who you become very close to. It isn’t fate, and it isn’t luck. It is not karma, and it most certainly is not because you prayed about it. You might have caught the flu because you weren’t washing your hands often enough, or were around  people who did not cover their mouths when they coughed. You got a speeding ticket because you were going over the speed limit and there happened to be a cop nearby who caught you. It’s not luck. Things just happen. 

      You think that person got in a car accident because they have bad luck, and that guy won the lottery because he has good luck? Sorry, but no. Things happen.  Nothing is due to luck. ‘The Universe’ didn’t know who had the winning lottery ticket. ‘The Universe’ doesn’t even know what the lottery is, because it does not have a central nervous system, and it does not have thoughts. ‘The Universe’ doesn’t know anything about you and has no power over what goes on in your life. We have the power over what goes on in our lives to some extent, but there are many things that are completely out of our control. Our thoughts will not change that. 

      Having a good attitude and a positive outlook on things in life is a great thing if that helps you to be in a better mood and helps you to think more clearly, but it definitely does not ‘attract’ positive things, events, and occurances into your life. Oh, your positive mental attitude, good thoughts, and prayers cured your terminal illness and magically you’re well? No, dumbass. You had a good doctor and happen to live during a time where modern medicine is pretty advanced. Or maybe the disease went away on its own, but if that’s the case, it went away because THINGS JUST HAPPEN. I cannot stress this enough. 

      You donate money to that charity, give change to that homeless man outside of the grocery store every day, or helped an old woman carry her groceries, because you think it’s going to get you something good, in return, because of ‘karma’? You selfish fuckhead. It’s good to do nice things for other people, just because it helped them out or made them feel good. But guess what? karma isn’t real, and you don’t have good things coming your way because you did a good thing. That’s not to say you DON’T have good things coming your way  at all- you might. But if you do, it’s because things just happen. Maybe some other idiot will do something nice for you in the future because he thinks it will give him good ‘karma’, or maybe he just wants to do something nice for you to help you out. Either way, he’s not helping you out because you helped someone out in the past. Even the worst people who have never done a nice thing in their life recieve acts of kindness from others. Good things happen. Bad things happen. Horrible, awful, unbelievable things happen, but not because of some bullshit that you call karma. 

     Some of you are probably thinking that I am just bitter because I tried ‘The Secret’ and didn’t get the results I wanted, or I prayed and the thing I wanted to happen didn’t happen. Wrong. I just simply do not need a crutch like that to help me get through the bad stuff. If you do need that crutch, much like you may need to believe in heaven because you are afraid of what happens when we die – that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that if you need it. Just stop trying to convince those of us who don’t. 

      Guess what? When you pray, no one is listening. Actually, it’s pretty egotistical for you to think that there is someone listening to you at every moment of the day and granting your wishes. I truly am happy that your sick mother’s cancer got better and she is well now and back to living her life, but you shouldn’t be thanking ‘God’ or ‘The Universe’ for that, you should be thanking her amazing doctors who worked their butts off, and advances in modern science and medicine. When that cancer was first diagnosed, maybe instead of being angry with ‘God’ or ‘The Universe’, you should be angry at what might have caused the cancer – such as decades of living a risky lifestyle. I’m aware that many cancers and countless other diseases were just a matter of bad genes, and in many cases, the victim did nothing wrong  and there was not much, if anything, that they could have done to prevent it. However, in this day and age, we have a lot of knowledge and there are many things that we can do to prevent all kinds of health issues. Take advantage of that, but then realize that when we or someone we love gets a horrible disease, the only thing that is in our control is the treatment. 

      This does not only apply to negative events. When something positive happens in your life, take a little credit. Your book got published because you wrote well, edited a ton, worked hard, networked, hired the right agent for the job, etc. Not because you prayed and used ‘The Law of Attraction’. You lost 100 lbs and got your health in check because you decided you wanted to, and set several hours aside each week to work out. You were conscious about what you ate, and it paid off. You did not lose weight because you prayed to ‘God’ and he granted your wish. 

      So, the next time anything happens to you, I challenge you to take some responsibility. Even if the bad thing that happened to you could not have been prevented (although in most cases you will find that there was probably something you could have done, albeit small) – take responsibility in turning the situation around, or trying to prevent the bad thing from happening in the future. Take responsibility when something finally does go the way you wanted it to. Wake up, and stop thinking that someone or something out there is controlling the events in your life – It’s not. Sometimes, things just happen. 

     I have been hearing a lot of young, attractive women talking about how “creepy” men are. Apparently, the general consensus among girls these days is that for a guy whom you have not met before to come up to you and hit on you in a public place (a bar, grocery store, bus stop, what have you) is creepy. Actually, he doesn’t even have to be hitting on you for you to be creeped out. He just has to talk to you. Seemingly, it has nothing to do with how attractive he is, how polite he is, or even what he says to you. If the context of the situation is that a male stranger comes up to you in public and speaks to you, it’s automatically viewed as creepy.

     But what about that guy you met on match.com? It doesn’t creep you out that he has to hide behind a computer screen to talk to chicks, because even though you’re both attracted to each other, he’s too socially awkward to ever approach you in public? Oh, wait. Even if he was confident enough to come up to you and talk to you if you caught his eye in a bar – you’d be creeped out.
I won’t even go into christianmingle.com and how much that website gives me the creeps.

     Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying I have never felt off-put by a guy who was trying to hit on me. I have had my fair share of strange dudes coming up to me and saying odd shit to me in public, especially when alcohol is a factor. What I am trying to say here is that it’s not always creepy to be approached in a public place, and if a guy really, truly makes you feel uncomfortable, ladies, from what I’ve seen, you’re really bad at showing it. Just really good at talking about it later and laughing at the poor guys expense.

      If a guy comes up to you and asks to buy you a drink or simply says something like ‘Hi, how’s your night going?’ and you have no intention of talking to him or getting to know him, there’s nothing wrong with that. The wrong-doing lies in smiling, batting your eyelashes, and pretending to listen to what he says for a quick second so that you can get your free drink and then go and tell your friends what a CREEP that guy was. First of all, what made him a creep? That he found you attractive or he liked your tattoos or he found something intriguing about you that made him want to talk to you and he had the balls to actually do it? Or was it that he was willing to spend eight of his hard earned dollars on some fruity beverage for a complete stranger? And secondly, if you are actually made uncomfortable by whatever it was he said to you, or by the gesture of him offering to buy you a drink, why in the hell would you accept the drink from him at all? If he is really that much of a weirdo, aren’t you worried he might have slipped something into it? Because let me tell you, real creeps roofie girls.

      Ever seen the Seinfeld episode where Elaine is on the subway reading a TV Guide and a bald guy with glasses and a horrible lisp starts talking to her, becomes obsessed with her, and ends up stalking her? Yeah. That is creepy. That guy trying to buy you a drink at the bar because he thought you were cute? Not creepy.
Also… When you decided to go out with your girlfriends on a Friday or Saturday night, and you made the conscious decision to wear that skirt and those heels…Honestly, what did you think would happen? You can claim that you weren’t trying to get attention from men, but we all know that’s a load of malarky.

     All of that being said, If a guy comes up to me and I immediately know that I have no interest in him, I will let him know that I appreciate any compliments that he has given me, but decline his offer to buy me a drink. Then, usually, my friends tell me that I was rude to him. To me, politely rejecting someone is much less rude than pretending that you like the attention he’s giving you (Oh wait, you probably actually do like it because it feeds your ego in some sick way) and then giving him some fake phone number and speaking ill about him later on. It’s not crazy to tell someone that you don’t want to give them your phone number. I do it all the time.

     Just because I reject your offer to buy me a drink, though, doesn’t mean that I think you’re a creep. In fact, I’m glad there are still guys out there who approach me in public. A lot of men are starting to get the memo that girls think it’s creepy to be talked to in bars – so they’re doing it less and less.

     Now, say weird things to me on a subway, get my address off of the back of my TV Guide, cut it up into some sort of craft project, and then come and bring it to me? Then you’re a creep. So, let’s stop overusing the word and only use it for those who really deserve it.