Early morning playing of Solitaire indicates that today will not be a good day. I used to apply this barometer to the stock market, and must defend its ability to predict at least as well as the Wall Street jocks.
Applying it to daily life is proving a 75% accuracy rate. No, I’m not breaking one of my Catholic-taught precepts of the Church: “Thou shalt not believe in dreams or fortune telling” (like it matters now anyway). The accuracy factor arises out of HOW the game is played. Even though I never put much thought into playing and it is done automatically while I focus on either a story line or a single current event, when my mind is cluttered or worried there is a tendency to override even this underlying awareness of the game, and thus I am not playing well. I will miss needed cards, not see a move, etc. This is how the rest of my day will go as well; unfocused, scattered, non-productive.
So, while five a.m. Solitaire is a good indicator, it is just a symptom rather than a cause. I can see it as the need to realign my priorities for the day, go through the list and concentrate on some items and put others off for another day. This gives me back some measure of control over those things which can be controlled at all.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology