I wish that…

The other night I took my fiancé out for dessert and as I sat happily eating tiramisu, she looked up from her chocolate mud cake and said ‘I wish that..’

At that moment, a few quick sparks shot through my mind and a thought formed.

We all make wishes. We wish for a better job, more money, a bigger house, a flatter stomach, better weather, health, a beautiful partner, safety, world peace, equality, an end to suffering and the list goes on and on and on. A wish is wanting a shift from the current position to another; struggle to wealth, sickness to health, sad to happy. How many wishes have we made up until this point? How many birthday candles extinguished, falling stars dreamed upon and eyelashes gently blown off fingertips?

Have we really thought this process through?

Perhaps our wishes are being granted, but the process is random and limited. Rather than asking which we would prefer, the genie picks a wish out of a hat and the chance of any one wish being selected is relative to the number of wishes it contains. If we have 1000 wishes in there, what are the chances of a worthy selection? Is the hat full of high quality wishes we really desire or is it diluted by frivolous, meaningless wishes that were made in a moment of weakness. Maybe at a time when circumstances existed that were not to our liking or didn’t meet our expectations. Like a cold and rainy day on a beach holiday – ‘I wish it was warmer’. There may be an opportunity cost component to wishing that we have been neglecting, as each wish may lower the chances of an alternative being granted.

Imagine someone that you consider successful. What wishes have got them there? I wish I had this skill, I wish to meet this person, I wish this deal goes through, I wish for a bit of luck, I wish for… Imagine that their actual success was determined by a focused wishing practice where each wish aimed them down a particular path. This meant that all of the wishes in the hat were consciously invested so that any one wish chosen for granting was definitely one that furthered their journey. Sounds ludicrous right?

Everyone realises that for the most part, success in anything does not depend on wishing. It depends on ideas, development and action. It takes patience, control, direction, knowledge, movement, training, practice, failure, learning, discomfort and numerous other skills. It takes work.

Most of our wishes are directed at things that either we cannot change, such as the weather – or another person. Things we are impatient to get or for which we are unwilling to invest energy, such as our fitness level or financial security, also claim a number of wishes. If we prioritise our wishlist by sorting it into categories and doing a little research on each we may better understand what is going on.

Perhaps headings like: what we can affect, what is valueless to our big picture, and what we feel we have no power over would be suitable sub-categories. Once listed. the things we can affect, we attempt to do. The useless we drop. And, the things we can’t affect, we accept and then possibly find value in them as they are.

I will assume that most, if not all wishes, are inherently selfish by nature. We wish for power, prestige, respect, attractiveness, material items and social status. We wish that others will move so that we don’t have to. We wish for our side to win and our position improved. We wish to succeed in all we do. We wish for the world to be different, less volatile, less risky and more peaceful.

In uncertain economic times, the desire for stability increases. Wishing for company success, government saviours, changes in culture or institution is probably not an effective use of our time. Neither is denial, distraction or ignorance to these areas. To move from one position to another with a certain amount of accuracy, intention is required. ‘I intend to…’. But as we know ‘the smallest deed is better than the greatest intention’. The smallest deed meaning: action. Not just any action though, action with a conscious intention to move in a specific direction. It doesn’t mean that we are forever tied to this path and without it we have failed, just that it is a directed movement away from a starting point. Once moving, options increase and as knowledge deepens and widens, the course can be adjusted. If we are looking for cultural, country or global movement, it takes the concerted effort of many hands working together with each hand knowing it has a certain responsibility to uphold as an individual.

This is obviously a little tongue in cheek but consider two things:

1) When we make a wish for the sun, growth also requires the rain.
2) Be careful what you wish for, as you might just get what you ordered.

My current wishlist? I wish for the strength to accept the responsibility of my experience, the power to help those I can, the ability to challenge my understanding and the courage to know and be myself. And just in case none of my wishes ever get granted, I will work hard to improve myself each day so that I may continually bring some value to this world.

Oh, and my fiancé wished that she could always be this happy. Good mud cake can do that to a person.

What do you wish for and what will you do about it?

Taraz Kanti-Paul

I am, They are.

We are told first impressions count and people make initial judgements and decisions in fractions of seconds and once made, it is difficult to change. However, we have all come across someone that we couldn’t accept (perhaps for years) only to hear something about the person’s past experiences, or the way they care for their sick partner or donate time to charity – whatever it is, it changed the known narrative and added depth of knowledge. Something that made us stop, assess and reposition our first impression. This is important for two reasons. Number one being that it is possible to change the narrative, secondly that they didn’t change at all, our perspective did.

How many times do we say I am, he is, she is, they are? Are they or, is that just the story we tell ourselves?
When we say such things, we actually mean what we do, not what we are. Or more accurately, what we perceive us doing.

We each create our own narrative but the reader always applies their own personal filter to create their personal image of us. The accuracy of their interpretation is questionable at best due to limited perspective but this doesn’t stop them from imagining they are correct. This is because people put a lot of belief in their judgement and rarely entertain the possibility of being wrong (until hindsight steps in). It may seem unfair that judgement takes place against us, especially when we feel that the judgement is incorrect yet, when we are the judge, we again feel that we ourselves are infallible.

We all at times live in contradiction and it creates certain conflicts in our thinking. Some of these struggles are minor and have little effect, while others are more severe and have long-term impacts on how we view ourselves. Most of us know someone who we think lives in constant conflict. Perhaps they tell of personal achievements that they do not actually see as theirs. Or talk of how hard they work but inwardly know the easy path was taken. It can be a hard life feeling you tricked the world but never being able to fool yourself.

To fully understand our own story and avoid internal disparity requires attention and energy to explore who we are so that thoughts, words and actions are made with intention rather than habit and a higher level of control is gained. We develop understanding and can actively choose our future actions. One added benefit of paying attention is that doorways are opened for appreciation and gratitude as one can only appreciate what is in awareness. And most I think would agree with me that the world would be a little bit better if we had a little more gratitude in it.

Alignment of thought, word, action provides a ‘what you see is what you get’ environment which doesn’t necessarily win more supporters but does indicate a trustworthy stance. With alignment, the narrative takes care of itself. Many will still judge but general accuracy increases and even if it doesn’t, the judgement is their reality, not ours. In each story, we are hero, villain, lover and executioner and which it is depends on perspective. If we would like something else, actions are ours to change.

We play many roles in a lifetime and experiment and play with many different skills and techniques to enhance or reduce the effects of what we see as strength and weakness. However, changing actions changes our narrative but not who we are, because who we truly are, is beyond any action performed. Through understanding comes acceptance of firstly ourselves and then the world around – and acceptance of others can happen instantly if we choose to have faith that there is more to their personal story and forego our process of judgement. Once this is achieved, failures add depth of character, compassion builds story lines, and happiness is our script.