We learn the wishing game very early — from the time we learn to speak and perhaps even earlier. We start by wishing for certain toys and, once we have those particular toys, we continue to wish for other toys. I remember as a little girl pressing my face against the glass window of a toy store and desiring a particular dolly — it was always a new and more beautiful one that I wanted. And I demanded that my mother buy her for me. At first it was a polite pleading, then a more insistent one. Publicly embarrassed, she rationally explained to me that she didn't have the money to buy the wretched thing. Then, when she downright refused, I lay on the ground waving my arms and legs in the air, screaming at the top of my voice, “I want it… I want it… I want it now”. Well, that was the first time she smacked me and apparently I never again behaved in such a spoilt way. But it didn't stop me wishing. After all, wishing is driven by the desire to be happy. That perpetual longing to be happy is innate in all of us.

Later on, at school, I wished for better and better grades. Or I wished that the boy on whom I had a crush would look at me. That would be enough. That would make me happy. If only he would look at me. When he did, and I realized he liked me, somehow I wasn't interested any more. This was a pattern lasting quite a few years. Wishing for this and that and the other continued well into my teens and all too quickly I found myself at the tail end of my twentieth year, several boyfriends later, seemingly with a surfeit of all that I had wished for — the avenues of hedonistic enjoyment I pursued. But somehow I still felt I needed something to make me happy.

One warm summer’s night I came home to a leafy, well-to-do area of the Adelaide hills — a gorgeous place called Aldgate. I was standing outside my little picturesque cottage (one of my wishes come true), feeling such an indescribable longing that I couldn't name what it was that I was longing for. As I gazed up at the sky, the Milky Way almost hanging low enough for me to touch, I saw a shooting star. Seeing it, my companion cajoled me into wishing for something. So I quickly rummaged my mind for any unspent wishes and — do you know what? I couldn't come up with anything. I realized in that moment that whatever I had wished for in the past and whatever I could wish for in the present or the future was merely too paltry a thing to ask. In that seemingly endless moment, I ran the gamut of the formulae of this world — the house, the career, the marriage, the perfect partner etc. etc. — and I realized with profound certainty that these things were only world-made formulae for happiness. So can you guess what I wished for? In that infinite moment it seemed quite obvious, quite clear what I should ask. I looked at that star intently — with a focused longing rarely felt before — and wished for HAPPINESS itself. Happiness itself. No catalysts. No objects of desire. Nothing but happiness itself.

Six months later, I met a person in whose company I heard about a 19-year-old teacher called Prem Rawat. Prem was offering people — with a longing for the indefinable, such as myself — a practical know-how to find happiness within themselves. No catalysts. No mountains to climb. Hearing him speak, I couldn't believe my ears. Here was someone saying something astounding: that happiness exists within you. It's a birthright. And I wondered if such a thing, such a joyous thing, were too good to be true. Well, cutting to the chase, it wasn't, and 33 years later I still look within to find an endless treasure of happiness. From this well comes other wonders, like strength, joy, contentment, peace — a fulfillment so complete that my gratitude for this kind gift continues to grow with the years. And I know that I haven't even begun to plumb the depths of this infinite well inside of me.  

Now — if I ever wish for anything — I wish that my connection to that teacher and my self remains intact so that I can benefit from the endless treasure of happiness that lives in my heart. Still the wishing game, but with a new twist.

If you wish for happiness and not the things you imagine will make you happy, then — like me — you might just receive something so much more precious than you anticipated.

I hope you do.

Illustration by Sara Shaffer.