Against if/then statements in warding
Btw if there is any chance that you, dear reader, are a beginner witch who is taking this whole warding/protection business seriously and are trying to sort through an elaborate schema of protections:
It is my (perhaps lowly) opinion that you should question if you should be using If/Then statements in your wards at all, if for no other reason than taking time to examine what it is you're really trying to protect against.
[If/Then warding: "All misfortune is kept away from me, but if it's a lesson from my spirits, then it's accepted."]
The reason I'm on this is because A) on a technical level, I believe if/then statements can very easily weaken spellwork, but also B) it's just so much more difficult to properly cover those loopholes, and then you risk delaying warding for months or years while you figure out the perfect set of programming code to specify that you basically don't want needless bad shit to happen to you but you still want to be connected to the world around you and you understand hardship is a part of life sometimes.
(Or even worse, C, trying to make wards so elaborate and finicky that they're never going to work, and then believing you just can't do magic, and get stuck in a spiral of not being able to practice until you're protected but your wards clearly don't work, even though you workshopped your 50 lines of programming for dozens of hours!)
"All spirits are blocked out and unable to enter, unless they already live here and are coming back or want to travel back and forth"
If you don't want to block out all spirits then why say that? Uninvited spirits, malicious spirits, malfeasant spirits might be a better way to go.
"All misfortune is kept away from me, unless it's a lesson to help me grow, but only if it's something I can handle."
What about all needless harm is kept away? All unhelpful harm? All harm that inhibits my current goals? And a separate discussion with your spirits about when and where you will accept potentially harmful lessons?
"I am protected from all misfortune, upset, and angry customers at my job, unless being protected from that will somehow impede my work performance."
What about I'm protected from all misfortune at my job, and the harmful impacts of stressful situations?
You can still experience a stressful situation while being protected from its impacts. Just because vile energy surrounds you does not mean it must have any effect on you. You can be a part of things and have your own agency and do right by yourself, without absorbing the harm into yourself.
"I am protected unless it's against my highest good-"
I prithee, internalize that you are the master of your own fate: decide what your own good is, and take it for yourself.
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