Naseeb!

You met someone, they seem to be decent, nice, cute, interesting, funny, pretty [...fill in your favorite adjective here] you get along for a while and then you seem to fall out of favor. Or you decide to take it to the next level, and there it falls apart. Or maybe you even decide to get married, prepare everything and then at the very last moment, on the day of the wedding, the invitations have been sent, the Zaffeh troupe is at the door and it falls apart ...

People call it Naseeb (Kismet, predestined) ... Other call it intuition... and others call it something else. But the end result is the same. Something that you wanted, and planned for is not going to happen for reasons beyond your own capacity to understand.

Truth is, there are always subliminal reasons but we just can't comprehend them at the time. We're probably trying to silence the noise raging inside our heads when a million people start asking what went wrong. Why, how and where ... and the dreaded question, "why did you wait till now to do this!"

Thing is, people change, what we feel changes. People have fears. And the realization of one thing might be the trigger of a hidden fear that we really didn't anticipate.

In psychology they are known as "hidden side of events" similar to free association, a negative form of free association. These hidden feelings, phobias , repressed or suppressed are all in there, they might be extremely difficult to detect or understand. And might force some people to go down the path that they themselves might regret. And they know it. But they would do it anyway.

Enough about psychology, and back to the social aspect of this matter. This Naseeb thing is a marvellous peace of mind for the believers. It's one of those black holes with no return. Imagine the typical answer "Why didn't it work out" and the answer is "Naseeb" which just short circuits everything, and you no longer have to explain, present reasons, discuss, argue, come to an agreement and possibly an action plan. It just throws all of that out of the window with one simple word. Naseeb.

Realists argue that Naseeb is an unknown, so how did anyone know that this indeed is the Naseeb? And not some crazy skewed image of a fable mentality or society?

Like a criminal investigator, If we look deeper, we start finding clues. We start finding evidence. When we collect all this evidence, we start getting closer to the root-cause. Naseeb, is probably the least related item in this case. It's the easiest answer, but the farthest from the truth

If we look closely we discover that our first impressions are often wrong. We discover that we have over valued people or under estimated them. For a person to be a fantastic judge of character every single time would be a miracle. If someone is delusional to say that they are like that. The answer is simple. If you have the talent to identify great people from first impression. Then you probably have friends who made it really big, and therefore you would probably benefit.

But more than likely .. that's not the case

Naseeb is something that helps us cope with the complexity of this world. It helps us throw the towel and say we don't know. It helps us sleep better at night knowing that it was all out of our hands. It's one of those internally produced mental narcotic that allows us to see a peachy view in the face of the most severe negativity. Naseeb is the way our minds cope with our helplessness and despite the mental health issues related to it, the consequences of not believing even at the subconscious level in this Naseeb would be far worse on the mental health of everyone.

Knowing that you have done wrong. Makes you feel bad, makes you lose self confidence and esteem. You start underestimating your worth and feel smaller and smaller. Naseeb sprints in to the rescue of the injured ego. All you have to believe that there was nothing else you could have done (or no one else could have done) and you're home free. Naseeb just makes it feel better. Puts the raging ideas to rest, like a prescription antidepressant

Now who said believing is not a good thing!?