In life there are three ways to get what you want.
1) Adjust your expectations. You can’t always get what you want, so one of the ways you can is to realize you want what you have. That’s a good aim in situations where you need to adjust your expectations. I want to fly by flapping my wings, but since I have no wings, I need to adjust my expectations to fit reality.
2) You have to know what you want. This is sort of the literal version of a lot of the “manifesting your bliss” type advice you hear, but this doesn’t have the lens of spirituality. Here’s the deal: In life, there are opportunities around you all the time. Most of us are too busy with little things in life or don’t know that we might want something and so we’re not looking for it. Then those opportunities pass us by and we missed our chance.
We can flip this script. By knowing what you want and focusing on it for a few moments (as a starting point not an end). You start to notice the opportunities around you. The clearer you see what you want, the further from you your desired end can be and still exist within reach.
To one using their logic backwards one could think: I really, really wanted something to eat as I walked down the road and ‘lo I manifested the apple tree as I came around the corner. No. No you didn’t. You used the desire of nourishment to focus your mind and prime you to see food as you came across it.
In fact, if you’d broadened your mind to include grubs and crickets, you might have eaten sooner (principle 1 in action).
If you had desired specifically a pear, you might have walked by and thought the apple not worth your time. Sometimes gaining what you can now with the apple, in order to keep yourself going until your pear arrives is the best option.
This is obvious in the case of a hungry person and food. Less obvious when the ends we seek become more complex.
3) Set a goal. This is taking steps down the road toward a known likely end. In example 2, we’re still opportunistic and so, it’s a matter of chance whether you’re going in the right direction. Perhaps you walked the wrong way and found only twigs and branches or a desert. More on goal-setting in an upcoming post.
