Have you ever heard the term, “Be careful what you wish for,” thrown about? Most people use this term as a joke, but I find the meaning behind it to be very serious. Because, like it or not, quite a few of the wishes that people make come true.

You don’t believe me, do you? You’ve made all kinds of wishes that haven’t come true, right? Well, the petty stuff doesn’t matter one way or the other. “I wish I had that bike!” That kinda thing won’t happen. The wish coming true would be too obvious. However, something like, “I wish I made more money than him,” has a very good chance of coming true. The problem with these wishes is that you have to really want them. If you want a wish bad enough, it will come true, whether you try for it or not. The problem with that is, if you don’t try for it, but you really want it, you’re not going to like how it happens.

If you really want your wish to come true, and you’re willing to put forth the effort to make it come true, then it will happen, in exactly the way you wanted it to. However, if you want that wish badly, but you aren’t doing anything about it, a force takes over and redefines your reality to make it happen. If you work really hard to earn more money than that other guy, you will earn more, and be happy. However, if you don’t work at it at all, they will lose their job, and you will be making more money than them by simply continuing what you are currently doing. You won’t make any more money, they will be making less.

The trick to this is that you can’t be too specific about your wish. If you say you wanna be making $327.54 by Thursday, you’re outta your mind. If you wish you were making more money, you might get what you want, though it won’t be very much more, and even then you’d have to be working at it because it would benefit you. If you wish for something bad to happen to yourself, it may never occur. Even if you work at it, something like that is hard to pull off because nobody else would want that to happen.

I find it’s always best not to wish for anything. The more you wish, the more trouble you will make for yourself or others around you. You wish for better food, your favorite store will close. You wish for a better job, you’ll get fired. You wish to move somewhere else, your house will be condemned. If you don’t wish for anything, you can set all the goals you want and work as hard as you want to achieve them. But if you wish for it, really want it, and don’t work hard enough to get it, you won’t like how it happens.

So, I’ll leave you with these words of wisdom. Be careful what you wish for, and wish for me to have $10,000. I’ve earned it.