The Paradox of the Wish List

I got myself a smartphone only a few months ago. Though I found it difficult to cope up with an intelligent device, I got along with it as everybody does. The device has made it too easy for me access the internet. Before that, I needed to boot my grunting system every time even if I had to spend only a few minutes on cyberspace. This rocket access has made me cultivate a new habit – adding items to my ‘wish-list’.

Being a voracious reader, I have always remained curious to read every book I come across. With my smartphone in my hand, I am able to add all the titles I come across to my wish-list which are mentioned as good reads. I have not read or purchased even a minuscule number of books on my wish-list and I know dead sure that either purchasing all or accessing all of them in a library is impossible, let alone reading them.

But having the books or goods you want on your wish-list creates a unique kind of satisfaction similar to the one you get when you window-shop. It does save you from spending money needlessly on items when offers are thrown up for each festival and makes you use your brain before you virtually checkout. But the point I stress is not the economic angle but the psychological side – the paradox of a ‘wish-list’.

Photo Courtesy: Randy Heinitz

This wish-list is completely different from our bucket-list or the aims and aspirations in our life. Depending upon the situations where we sprout, conditions which shape our living, vivid dreams and breath-taking passions we pursue a journey different from every individual we meet. But all of us have an underlying commonality. Our real life journeys are fuelled by commitment but the virtual ‘wish-list’ remains orphaned by effort and relevance.

Yet, I sense a tinge of satisfaction when I have the items I ‘want’ on my wish-list. The same is true of many things we wish in life. We wish we had the shirt on the other side of the glass ceiling when we pass by it, wish we owned a brand new bike when it halts in our gaze in a traffic signal or wish being the celebrity when we see him receive an award. But all these ‘wishes’ drift away as milk clouds do on a whistling breeze.

Contentment is the foundation of happiness but these irrelevant wishes does not harm our peace of mind as we realise that these wishes may never be true. But they are as special as meaningless day-dreams. The beauty lies in the chasm between what we really ‘need’ and what we ‘wish’ but ‘never need’. The wish-list showers a few happy moments when we wish that we had them but we know that we don’t want them – the paradox of feeling ownership just because you ‘wish’.

Photo Courtesy (External link):
Randy Heinitz