It's not that the Universe is out to get you, it's that the Universe doesn't care about you one way or the other.

Humans have a tendency to blame things that happen on outside forces. Those forces can be supernatural, universal, or other humans.... The last of those three forces do effect our lives to some degree but most of the "bad luck" we experience is all of our own doing.... Keep in mind though even bad luck serves the purpose of giving us a perspective in life because if bad things didn't happen we would not be able to fully appreciate the good...

I get it, it’s hard to shake superstition and we definitely don’t know everything about how the universe works. With my luck so far it’s hard to not believe that something about this reality is conspiring against me, but I know it’s mostly a combination of my own negative assumptions with the neutral, unfeeling nature of the universe. There’s no doubt that some people get born into better circumstances, with a better sense of natural timing than others, that sets them down an easier path. Others get born 2 weeks late to a family that’s dug a hole for them and spend their whole lives tryin to catch up and climb out.

Your impulse to not wanna jinx things is the correct one, even if luck doesn’t exist. Things don’t usually go wrong because you told someone, but If you tell someone about plans/opportunities too early it generally has negative effects on you just because of the objective reality. If you’re planning to quit smoking or run a marathon for instance, and tell everyone you know about it, you get the dopamine from congratulations too early and become less likely to follow through. You’ve already got the reward and kudos from it so you rob yourself of that accomplished feeling you’d get after truly earning it. If you tell someone about an upcoming opportunity or date you’re excited about too early, you set yourself up for disappointing multiple people instead of just yourself and that becomes an even bigger discouragement.

It’s more an issue of managing your expectations and realizing that everything is a process to be worked at; anything can go awry at any minute and the universe owes us nothing. This gets lost when we reveal our plans too early. I don’t think there’s any singular intelligence or intention to the universe, but there does seem to be a universal vibrational effect, moving through everything, that can easily get disturbed by ego/pride. It’s a gross oversimplification to personify it as some being that wants to punish us, but for all practical purposes the universe does seem to laugh its merry ass off any time we get arrogant enough to think our plans are set.

If it helps, the universe really doesn't give a shit about you.