What Dreams May Come?
As children we are taught to wish upon a star, make a wish when we blow out the candles on a birthday cake, and to make a wish before blowing the seeds off the head of a dandelion — and even as adults we encourage each other to continue wishing for things — but have you ever stopped to wonder why?
Better yet, have you ever paused to wonder what it would be like if some of your wildest dreams really did become true?
Even the most jaded skeptics among us will have experienced moments of coincidence, or good fortune, or synchronicity — when the very thing we were wishing for has appeared at the most opportune moment.
Often these moments are brushed aside as meaningless.
But what if they aren’t?
What if wishing is indeed something you can intentionally do?
I can hear the shrieks of derision now (and the obvious come back) — “Ok then, if wishes do come true — then why haven’t I won the lottery?”
But what if that isn’t how wishing works at all?
In other words, what if successful wishing is more about your own ability to believe that a thing can and will actually happen in the normal course of your daily life, rather than the thing that you have been wishing for?
As confusing as this sounds, it is actually relatively straightforward once you stop trying to control the process.
Take the example above — according to Google, the odds of winning the US Mega Millions lottery are one in 302,575,350, making it extremely unlikely that your wish can come true.
But what if you simply wished to become a millionaire in America without specifying “how” you will accomplish this?
Believe it or not the US Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances has concluded that your odds of accomplishing this would be somewhere between 6.4% and 22.3%. That seems much more do-able.
Granted, in this example you will have to actively contribute to this wish coming to fruition by either earning the money by working, buying and selling real estate, or possibly acquiring it as an inheritance, but the point is clear none the less.
New Age life coaches refer to the act of intentionally wishing for something and then participating in helping this wish to come to pass as “manifesting”.
According to Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret, manifesting is ‘the practice of thinking aspirational thoughts with the purpose of making them real”.
In other words, Byrne believes that by simply buying into the idea that a positive situation can and will happen in your life, you can align the energy inside you in such a way that you are drawn toward the people and situations that can help make your goal possible, and that these people are equally drawn to you.
Not surprisingly, Byrne’s critics have one universal retort — If it is really that simple — then why isn’t everyone a millionaire?
And this is where things get a wee bit tricky because — particularly in the case of a large goal (such as becoming a millionaire) — you have to be willing and able to seize all of the opportunities that are presented to you in your pursuit of this goal and equally, you have to be willing to work towards this goal until you have completed all of the steps required to accomplish it.
If that’s the case — then the trick to successful wishing might well be to make the act of wishing a desire to see all of the required steps to accomplishing a goal in the correct order and the ability to continually understand how to accomplish each of them in succession without trying to control either the process itself or the duration of this quest.
Is this a reasonable solution or just a flight of fancy?
I’ll let you decide — if you give it a go let us know how it works out in the comments below.
