Be Careful What You Wish For

I have always found prayer interesting, especially as someone who is agnostic and does not believe in the literal existence of what most people call God.

That may sound strange, but I still think prayer can be useful, and maybe even necessary. At its best, prayer is not merely a way to calm yourself down when life becomes difficult, although research does suggest that prayer is often connected to emotional regulation, stress, and well-being. To stop there, though, would be to do prayer an injustice.

Prayer is more than coping. Prayer is attention.

Carl Jung described religion as “a careful and scrupulous observation” of the numinous, which is a better way to think about what people are often reaching for when they pray. They are trying to come into contact with something deeper than ordinary thought, something that interrupts the ego, widens the frame, and reminds them that their immediate wants are not always the same thing as their highest good.

The problem is that a lot of people use prayer like a wishing well.

They pray for more money, more success, a better body, a better relationship, more recognition, and more ease. None of those desires are necessarily bad, but when prayer becomes a way to ask for things without examining what those things would demand of you, it cheapens it.

And if you believe you are speaking to God, there may be nothing more disrespectful than treating God like a wishing well.

The better prayer is “make me the kind of person who can carry the thing.”

Give me discipline. Give me patience. Give me courage. Give me clarity. Give me humility. Give me the courage to tell the truth when it would be easier to manage everyone’s perception of me.

Most people do not actually want what they say they want. They want the fantasy version of it. They want the relationship without the vulnerability, the business without the pressure, the platform without the scrutiny.

This is why “be careful what you pray for” is not just a religious warning, but a psychological one.

If you keep asking for more, life will usually show you where you are still underdeveloped. More love may expose your insecurity. More opportunity may expose your disorganization. More visibility may expose your dependence on approval.

A better question than “How do I get what I want?” is “Who would I have to become to handle what I want?”

The thing you want is usually less important than the trait it is asking you to develop.

Hack of the week: Start badly

It is almost always better to start with an ugly first attempt than to keep waiting for the perfect opening, plan, mood, or moment to arrive.