Wish Granted

Maybe our laundry room is another one!

She claims it really happened.

Our friend is from Thailand, and she went home to spend some time with her grandma. During her visit, they went to a temple in Chiang Mai where wishes are granted. It works like this. You make a sincere wish and bring an elaborate floral arrangement to the temple. Then the goddess grants your wish.

She won’t tell us what her wish was, but she says it came true.

I tried to guess, without actually probing her privacy. Let’s see. She’s already finished school and she’s working at her dream job in her dream career. She was currently on what looked like a pretty incredible and fun vacation. She still has her youth and her health. What could she wish for? True love? A home of her own? A wedding? Ooooh, I hope it’s a wedding!

We’ve been a bit fixated on this ever since. Not whether our sweet-natured young friend is going to get married and have a baby, nah. The wish-granting thing!

What if there really WAS a place where you could go and make a wish that you knew 100% would come true?

What would you wish for?

???????

Obviously two people of means who enjoy world travel are going to have to go to this particular temple, just to see it in person. Just like if we went to Ireland I would feel compelled to kiss the Blarney Stone. What if… what if it worked??

Or what if almost all wishes were really pretty mundane and easy to make come true?

What if most of us are simply in a conflicted state, where we both want something and want not to have it at the same time?

I honestly think this is the problem, and there are countless do-want/don’t-want situations.

Take grad school for example. Most people probably do not wish to enroll in graduate school and study for a master’s degree. I’m a little obsessed with the idea. I’m also sure that if I did go, I would graduate, and I would have a strong chance at magna cum laude. So why don’t I do it?

Three reasons. 1. I wouldn’t choose anything that would lead directly to a job, so it wouldn’t pay for itself, and that’s quite a lot of debt. 2. There are at least three separate and distinct fields that interest me, and I still can’t make up my mind which one I would choose. 3. I haven’t been in a math class since early 1993, and I believe I would have to do a year of remedial mathematics just to pass the GRE.

Therefore, I don’t wish my wish.

I guess I sorta wish that grad school was free, that I was a math whiz, or that I could talk my way in without having to pass calculus. Those are neat wishes that I know are not as realistic as Paying What It Costs or Doing What It Actually Takes.

I don’t need there to be a special wish-granting temple to go to grad school. I would just need to make a decision and then spend some time with some math tutorials.

What are some other common conflicts that stop us from making a heartfelt wish?

A new job! I can’t count how many people I know who actively hate their current job yet have no plans to look for a new one. As much as they would prefer to work somewhere else, they:

Don’t want to update their resume

Don’t want to spend even five minutes thinking about work while they are at home

Don’t want to buy an interview outfit at their current size

Are close enough to retirement that it feels like less work to stay put

Don’t want to spend months applying for jobs or trying to schedule secret interviews

The more we know about the specific process of making our wish come true, the less we want to move forward and do it! Every wish touches on some other area where we would need a fresh new wish. It’s like shampooing your carpet only to feel like you need a new couch.

Dating is another example. I know a lot of single people who could easily be in a relationship. They’re fun and they basically have their lives together. There’s always something, though. One of my friends doesn’t really want to meet someone because it would mean moving and she just loves her apartment too much. Another is so afraid she might meet a serial killer that she doesn’t want to go on a date. Alas, the love of your life is indeed going to be a total stranger the first time you meet… I think the biggest destroyer of incipient new love, though, is poor body image. Don’t look at me, I’m not ready to be loved yet.

Not yet! Not yet! Don’t grant my wish yet!

Because I need to be photo-ready, because I want to rehearse my acceptance speech first, because I haven’t figured out precisely what I want down to the carpet tacks. Because I guess I don’t really want anything different after all.

Take your wish and stuff it in a garbage sack and haul it out back to the dumpster, because I don’t want a wish!

Maybe we’ve spent too long listening to the naysayers. Maybe we’re one internet search and ten minutes away from finding out that our true wish is much easier and cheaper than we had believed, just like I found out that my dream desktop computer cost less than half what I thought it would. Maybe our wishes are planted so deeply inside of us that there is nothing we can do to stop them. Maybe our wishes will be granted so quickly that we find ourselves on our knees weeping big sloppy tears.

All right then. If you knew you’d get your wish, what would you wish for?