Wishes

Some days when I am having trouble thinking, I take a break by playing Mahjong at shockwave.com. I find the rhythm of seeking out the matching tiles soothing enough to give my mind a chance to refocus.

When I return to my work, I usually resolve whatever the problem was, whether that was a lead to a story, some way to end it, or whether or not it needed a sidebar.

The game has a fortune aspect to it. When you open it up, it gives you a little rhyme.

This is what it said to me on December 30, 2007:


Daily Fortune

If you would use the talent
Fate has given you to write
You'd win success in prose or verse
in serious themes or light.

A long delayed package of value will shortly come to you.

You'll get your wish, sure.

I kept it because it was so close to the end of the year and I was doing much soul-searching about my life and particularly my writing career. And because I knew at some point I would write this particular blog entry.

Today it says:

Appearances to you seem good
and fortune more than kind
but you could win both wealth and fame
if you were not so blind.

You will receive unjust treatment from a near relative.

You may get your wish later on.

I do not pay particular attention to things like this. It is like reading your horoscope - it is what it is and it's what you make of it. But I sometimes fear such ditties can become subconscious self-fulfilling prophesies.

Take today's comment about the relative thing. I have been busy and haven't even thought about my relatives, aside from my husband. But I read that and thought, I should call my brother.

And of course if I were to do so, which I am not, I could end up feeling slighted or hurt because he tends to have that effect on me.

So I would have made that come true.

The last line always has something about a wish. You might get it, you won't get it, you will get it.

The trouble is, I never know what it is I have wished for. There are days when I look at those lines and I think, what DO I wish for?

Apparently the answer is nothing concrete. I do not wish for specifics. Instead I have vague notions of things I'd like to correct.

So I am wondering, what is it people wish for? What do you wish for? Are your wishes specific? Do they ever come true?

If I make a wish, can I make it come true?