Wishful Thinking

June 18, 2025

I just love anything Robert Frost. I came across this: "a person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body-the wishbone."

Perfectly said! How many of us can agree? I do. We spend so much time wanting, wishing, dreaming… and we don't have the action to back that up. Wishing is so much better than trying because their is no failure involved. Stakes are low. Wishing feels good, like wishing you were on some exotic vacation or wishing you had an unlimited amount of money. The wish of being a successful writer is different than sitting down every day to write. Wishing is better than rejection. Wishing is better than putting your money and time where your mouth is.

As another expression goes, "someday is not a day of the week." A reminder that wishing for that "someday," is a waste of time. I do believe there is a healthy amount of wishing that we can all have, only if it leads us to take real steps to fulfill that wish. Otherwise, wishing is pornography - it feels like something in the moment but it damages us the more we do it. Wishing builds the sense of accomplishing something, when accomplishing something is the only way to have that feeling.

We can go our entire lives - or most of it - wishing for things to happen or be a certain way. Only to cement the reality that none of it actually came to be. Telling everyone I know I am going to write a book is wishing. Sitting down everyday and writing and posting for all to read, is actually doing it.

Spend some time today developing something other than your wishes. Spend some time this week using a wish to take you to the first, simplest, next step. Developing the wishbone, consider the term, "wishful thinking." To think wishful, is to think based on what we want to be true, absent of reality or evidence. The effort we put in to doing something, generates evidence and strengthens our reality. We also come out stronger by taking action.