Dragos Roua at Brilliantly Better stole my thunder. 

Along with my time travel question, I’ve been wanting to write about what to wish for when you discover the genie in the magic lamp.  It turns out I’ve been trying to answer that question for years. 

Not only do you have to figure out what you want to wish for (only three wishes!), but you have to phrase the wishes so the genie doesn’t totally screw you over. 

When I read the post at Brilliantly Better, I realized I’ve totally been wasting my time.  There’s no need to do a trade-off analysis between the ability to instantly teleport anywhere with the ability to talk to animals. 

Turns out you’re better off ditching the lamp-finding expedition all together to spend your time making your own wishes a reality.  As Dragos mentions, this still requires careful phrasing, but for an entirely different reason. 

Often, we don’t really know what we want.  Forcing yourself to articulate the wish so you know when you’ve achieved it brings a lot of clarity. 

But the big insight for me was acknowledging that sometimes, in order to make your wishes come true, you need to ask for help.  Maybe what’s so compelling about the genie is that the offer for help is immediate.   No cold calling, no groveling.   Just tell him what you want, and your wish is his command.  Sweet.

I’m pretty poor at asking for help myself.    I don’t want to intrude on people’s time or appear rude.  Maybe I’m worried my wishes will reveal exactly how selfish I am.  I’ll admit that as I toyed over the genie question, I wasn’t ever contemplating how to cleverly ask for world peace.

So here goes nothing–3 wishes I could use some help with:

1. I wish everyone who read this post subscribed to my blog
2. I wish everyone who read this post extended the good karma by performing an act of kindness the next day
3. I wish everyone who did number 2 returned and left a comment describing the act of kindness they performed

We’re all a little selfish–subscriptions and comments really do make my day.  It makes this blog feel more like a community, and as a woman, that’s important.  But the real secret is this: kindness is the genie lamp, and there’s no limit on wishes.