The Genie Question
If you had 3 seconds (from right now) to make one wish and you can wish for anything you want, except for more wishes, what would you wish for?
Almost every single person I have asked this question to in person, has failed to answer it aloud in the 3 seconds. The only woman who answered it without hesitation is a mom who lost her son and immediately responded by saying she wanted her son back.
I understand the hesitation in responding aloud to this question because I was embarrassed by the answer I came up with in my 3 seconds. I wished for something like a hundred million dollars. At the time, I was working at a job I didn’t like, I had a lot of pain in my body, and I was living with a “lack mentality”.
While I know that money doesn’t solve all our problems, I believed it was the easiest thing I could come up with to help me get where I wanted to be, which I will talk about once I ask you two additional questions:
If your wish came true, how would your life be different?
How would you FEEL after your life was different?
I came upon this question in a book called Beyond Willpower by Alexander Loyd. While the genie question technically cannot be answered incorrectly, Loyd contends that what we really want comes from the answers to the follow up questions.
Almost everyone wishes for an external change in circumstances (e.g., money, health, accomplishments, etc) but what we really want are the changes in our lives that occur as a result of those circumstances.
These internal changes are things like peace, love, joy, ease and abundance for example. When we live with presence in an internal state of acceptance, we find that we already have everything that’s important to us.
I wanted more money so I could get body work done whenever I needed it, could leave my job and find something more interesting to do with my time, donate to charity as desired without feeling like I didn’t have enough money to pay my bills if I gave it away, etc.
What I really wanted was for my life to be easier and to live without stress and pain. If this were the case, I wouldn't need body work and would have plenty of time to engage in activities I enjoyed.
I’m all for accomplishing any materialist goal that you have if that’s a desire for you. The only point of the exercise is to remember why we are working toward the goal and how we will feel when it comes to fruition.
It sounds cliche but when we really do remember that we’re here to enjoy the journey to each destination or goal we chose, our lives improve dramatically, both for ourselves and for everyone around us.
Easier said than done, I know very well. This is where meditation comes in.
If you can sit in a quiet place for even 5 minutes a day and focus on the internal state that you want to achieve (e.g. peace, joy, love, ease, abundance, etc) you will move yourself closer to that desired state.
If you prefer to walk in a quiet place that’s also great. Do whatever works best for you and helps you to move forward.
It really does work and it does start to feel like magic when you stick with it!
Final Note:
If you’d like some help figuring out what you really want, check out these “New Year” questions from The Institute of You. They’re designed to get us thinking about both our past year and what we might want to do differently in 2022.
This is NOT about resolutions. They’re just a nice set of questions to get us thinking. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
