As soon as man stood up and walked, he started to count. Before the idea of “numbers” became part of our basic logic set, objects were just objects. It's a little hard to imagine that if you had two rocks in front of you, you wouldn't refer to them as “two rocks.” The two had no significance. But numberless life didn't last for long. As soon as humans got a handle on numbers, they started to give them significant meanings.

Over time, numbers evolved to something more than a counting table. Numbers became mystical. The ancient Chinese are thought to be among the first to give numbers the label of “lucky.” In Chinese culture, some numbers are believed to be fortunate or unfortunate. Primarily, odd numbers are thought to be unlucky in Chinese culture, leaving the even numbers to be the luckier. The Chinese believe that good luck comes in pairs.

Almost every culture holds some numbers to a lucky standard. The number 7 has been considered to be lucky for centuries. Though its origins are up for debate, there are many instances throughout history that reference the number 7 and its lucky nature. The Pythagoreans referred to 7 as the “perfect number,” stating that 3 and 4, the triangle and the square, were the perfect figures.

Some thought the luck came from 7 ancient planets, the sun being the greatest. The moon changed its shape every 7th day, the Arabians had 7 Holy Temples, the Goths and the Romans had seven deities, and so on. In earlier times, this number had much more significance than we place on it now. In fact, the only time 7 seems to come up this day and age is during a game of craps.

The number 13 acts as the number 7s complete opposite in many ways. One similarity they do have is their uncertain nature. Some say the unlucky 13 finds its roots with the last supper, where there were 13 present at the table. Also, one of the meanest Norse gods named Loki arrived to a gathering at Valhalla, the banquet hall of the gods. There were only 12 guests present until Loki arrived.

After Loki arrived, the gathering took a grim turn. Also, famous fiction writer Agatha Christie further increased the mystic appeal of the number 13 when she penned 13 short stories and put out an additional book titled The Thirteen Problems. Just as the number 7, the true significance of the unlucky number 13 will remain a mystery.

We all tend to have numbers we hold to be either lucky or unlucky. Whether they're calendar dates, ages, etc, the way we deal with numbers has a lot to do with who we are. In certain aspects of Italian culture, having an odd number of food items is considered to unlucky. For example, if there are 17 veal cutlets, the cook will only prepare and serve 16. We like to play lotteries with our favorite numbers, make a wish when the clock strikes 11:11, get point spreads, and much more. In a way, numbers shape our lives and everything we do. But in other ways, they're meaningless words we put to the world around us in order to make sense of things.