What Do You Want?

I saw a shooting star last night.

I should probably note here that when it comes to religion, superstition, and other things supernatural, I'm about as practical as they come. I don't believe in the Christian God (or any other god, for that matter), I'm uncomfortable with spirituality, I don't believe in Fate, I don't believe in feng shui, and if a ladder is in my way, I won't hesitate to walk underneath it. My family had a black cat while I was growing up - if I had bad luck every time she crossed my path, I'd be dead by now.

However, pop culture has ingrained in my head, just about since birth, that when you see a shooting star, you make a wish. So when I saw the shooting star, my first thought was, "I should make a wish." I expected something to spring immediately to mind. In the past, I've always had a wish ready to go, something that just leapt out when the occasion to make a wish arose. I never really expected any of these wishes to come true (at least, not as a result of my coin in the wishing well or the wishbone breaking in my favor), but always felt that it couldn't hurt. But this time nothing came to mind. "Anything your heart desires," as the song goes, and I couldn't think of a damn thing.

Sure, there are things that I would like to have: a G5 with a broadband internet connection, the ability to write a good song, a really nice set of surround speakers on which I could listen to the work of people who have the ability to write a good song, a slightly larger paycheck, Achtung Baby on vinyl... But these are very casual and trivial desires - it took me a half an hour to think of that many. If I was given a wish that was guaranteed to come true, I wouldn't waste it on any of those things. And in my unsuperstitious world, I always felt that shooting stars weren't the place to make material wishes. (Or impossible ones, such as anything relating to my musical ability. Even nearly-omnipotent cosmic forces have some limits.)

But if not a material item, what was I going to wish for? What did I want that I couldn't acquire by carefully saving money for a month or two?

I gave my life a quick review and tried to identify something that was missing or lacking. I wasn't able to. Every day I enjoy the benefits of having a loving, supportive, completely selfless family, the best friend anyone could ever ask for (who also provides me with a second family - his), a job I love that pays the bills (if not much more), co-workers I like (or, at the very least, that I can tolerate), an 80 gig video iPod, the ability to get enormous satisfaction out of music even if I can't create it myself, a nice, affordable apartment, and countless simple things that make me happy ranging from the color blue and chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven to that middle section of Sister Blue's Human and watching the sun set behind the mountains on my drive home from work. What more can a person ask for?

According to many that I've spoken to, the answer to that question is "a lot." Just a few days ago I said to someone, "I'm happy, and really, what else can you ask for?" His reply was, "You can always ask for more." Well, sure, that's true, but I fail to see how it will make me happier. It's the classic "glass half empty" mentality that seems all too prevalent in the world today, particularly among members of my own generation - the habit of measuring your life by all the things you don't have.

There's a line in a Wallflowers song called How Far You've Come that has resonated with me since the first time I heard it: "You'd have a wonderful day if you could see how lucky you are." That line gave a voice (and a nice melody) to an idea that I'd been struggling for years to put into words - that happiness is achieved not by getting what you want, but by realizing - and appreciating - what you have. I've been blessed with a life in which what I have amounts to a hell of lot.

Still, shooting stars are rare, and I wouldn't want to let a wish go to waste. I don't know how quickly the window of opportunity to make a wish closes after you see the star, but when a couple of minutes had passed I started to figure I was pushing the limit. I needed to take advantage of my wish pretty soon. Now what the heck did I want?

In the end, I simply wished for everyone I love to have a life as fulfilling and wishless as my own.