There is a word (because of course there is a word) for when life doesn’t just happen to you, but slowly organizes against you with your quiet, unknowing participation.

It’s called zemblanity.

Which sounds like a country you don’t want to vacation in. Or a skincare condition.

It is, in fact, the opposite of serendipity. Where serendipity is
“I stumbled into something wonderful.” Zemblanity is “I tripped over the same thing 14 times and would like to call it fate.”


I’ve been thinking about this because I once knew someone, well my mother, who had the kind of luck that made other people slightly uncomfortable.

She won things. Not metaphorically. Literally.

Contests. Raffles. Lotto picks. Life just opened doors for her like she had a backstage pass to the universe.

And then, one day, it stopped. Not gradually. Not politely. Abruptly.

And it didn’t just stop. It reversed. Spectacularly. Impressively. Almost artistically.

One thing after another. A cascade. A pattern.

Her explanation was that someone gave her the evil eye.

Which, honestly, felt plausible. Because when enough things go wrong in a row, the brain starts looking for a narrator.

Someone must be behind this.

A villain. A force. A jealous neighbor with strong opinions and better eyeliner.

But then along comes psychology, ever the buzzkill at the supernatural dinner party, and offers a less cinematic, more unsettling explanation. Psychology notes that zemblanity is not random. It’s constructed.

It is what happens when small decisions, ignored advice, environmental factors, and systemic patterns begin to quietly collaborate.

Not dramatically. Not maliciously. Just consistently.

Take the person who is told, repeatedly, gently, lovingly:

> “Maybe use the walking stick.”

And they say:

> “I’m fine.”

They are always fine. Until the day they are not.

And when they fall down the stairs, it feels like an accident.

A tragedy. A moment.

But it wasn’t a moment.

It was a trajectory.

Zemblanity lives in:

1. the email you don’t answer
2. the boundary you don’t set
3. the culture you tolerate
4. the system you don’t question
5. the small “it’s probably fine” decisions that stack like emotional Jenga

Until one day there is a collapse.

And we call it bad luck.

This is where it gets uncomfortable.

Because the alternative to “evil eye” is not nearly as satisfying.

The alternative is participation.

Not blame. Not fault. Not moral failure. Just participation.

We co-author more of our misfortune than we’d like to admit.

Not all of it. Life is still chaotic, unfair, and occasionally unhinged.

But some of it?

Some of it is pattern.

And yet,  I refuse to fully let go of the magic.

Humans are meaning-making machines.

We need the evil eye.

We need the story that says that this came from somewhere.

Because the possible (alleged) truth, that outcomes emerge from dozens of tiny, compounding variables, is cognitively correct but emotionally unsatisfying.

No one wants to say that they arrived at that point through a series of mildly suboptimal decisions over time.

That is not a story. That is a spreadsheet.

So what is it, really?

Evil eye?

Or cascading decisions?

The answer, inconveniently, is:

Yes.

Because even when the mechanism is psychological, behavioral, or systemic it still feels like something is watching.

Something is aligning.

Something is off.

Zemblanity is not a curse.

It’s a whisper.

A slow accumulation of signals saying something needs to be attended to. And if we ignore it long enough? It stops whispering.

So the next time life feels like it’s conspiring against you, it might be worth asking:

Not just,

> “Who did this to me?”

But also,

> “What has been quietly taking shape?”

And then without shame, without drama change one small thing.

Before the staircase arrives.