The Luck of the “I Wish”

Four short stories that taught me about our power of attraction.

Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash

The following experiences occurred about fifteen years ago while I was still learning about the power of our thoughts and words toward manifesting our desires. In reflection, I think it’s important to understand that these incidents occurred to teach me how easy this process can be. We humans tend to gravitate toward the complicated versus the simple—I’m no different. Yet my clue that the Universe is teaching me through events is when the events occur in a series. For myself, I believe this is necessary to drive home the lesson, probably because I typically begin from a place of skepticism, so the repetition of the lesson helps me to overcome it.

The brief stories you’re about to read are entirely true.

Accidental Attraction

One Sunday morning, I noticed that Van Morrison was playing in Boston. I’ve loved Van Morrison’s music for more than three decades, so I tried to get tickets. The concert was sold out, which was no surprise since the concert date was the following weekend. “Ah, I really wish we could go to that concert,” I told Melissa.

The next day, out of the blue, some acquaintances who lived in another state emailed to ask if we’d be interested in going to a Van Morrison concert. They had won four free tickets from a radio station and they weren't using two of them. It was especially odd, because we’d never done anything with this couple, yet now they were inviting us to the exact concert I wanted to attend. We gratefully accepted.

The concert was wonderful, of course, and the tickets were for private box seats, the kind of seating that protrudes from the wall. If I had purchased them from a ticket agency, they'd have cost a fortune.

Experimenting with Attraction

This coincidence got me thinking about the subject of manifesting, so I decided to do an experiment. I needed a laptop computer. I had only owned desktop computers at this point in my life, so I set the intention of attracting a laptop into my life. Basically, all I did was request that the Universe send me one.

The following weekend, Melissa and I drove to Connecticut to visit Melissa’s younger sister, Caroline, and her family. Before the weekend was over, Caroline’s husband, Danny, walked into the room with an IBM ThinkPad laptop and handed it to me.

“Is this anything you’re interested in?” asked Danny. “My job just gave me a new one and this one’s on the fritz. If you don’t mind getting it fixed, you can have it.”

I almost couldn’t believe it, because I hadn’t said anything to anyone about my manifestation experiment or my wish for a laptop. Still, I didn’t get too excited because I didn’t know what it would cost to get the laptop fixed. It turned out to cost only ninety bucks. The tech guy who fixed it was so blown away that someone had given it to me for nothing that he tried to buy it from me for five hundred dollars without having to pay for the repair. I was tempted, but declined his offer and kept the computer.

Test Number Two

Feeling like I was on a roll with manifesting my desires, I decided to take it a step further. This time I needed a lawnmower. I wished for the Universe to give me a lawnmower and didn’t think of it again.

That weekend, Melissa and I drove down to our friends’ house in Massachusetts for the day. I was helping my buddy, Kris, do some chores around the yard. We carried some trash bags out of the garage to the side of the road. He already had a bunch of trash sitting at the end of his driveway under a blue tarp. When he lifted the tarp to add the trash bags underneath, there was a lawnmower sitting there.

“What’s up with the lawnmower, Kris? You throwing it away?”

“Yeah, you want it? It’s practically brand new. It’s a Lawn-Boy,” he said.

“If it’s brand new, why you getting rid of it?”

“It was in my shed and I needed to reach for something, so I stepped on it and cracked the plastic gas tank. You know me. I can’t fix anything. Plus the grass was long, so I went out and bought a new one,” he said. “It’s yours if you want it. It’s just going to the dump on Monday anyway.”

I brought it home, removed the gas tank with four simple screws, and bought a new one for twenty-five dollars. Shazam!

Manifesting a Giant

A few months later, after a health scare, Melissa was working on fulfilling a bucket list. One item on her list was to see a Josh Groban concert. Since she’s on Josh’s email list, she got early notice that tickets were going on sale. We got seats in the fourteenth row. It was perfect timing and the perfect event for our upcoming anniversary celebration.

It felt like a special occasion going to a concert, especially considering Melissa wore a long summer dress that made her look absolutely stunning. It had been a while since we’d gotten dressed up for anything other than a wedding or funeral, so this was a special night for us. I just loved seeing her glow so brightly.

After hitting heavy traffic on Interstate 93, we arrived at the concert at 7:20 PM with only ten minutes to spare before the show began. We quickly found our seats and were really pleased with how close they were to the stage.

After getting all jazzed up with the opening act, we had a half-hour wait until Josh made his entrance. As we waited while looking at all the people, Melissa said something about the great view we had of the stage. I pointed out that our view was especially great because the two seats in front of us were still empty.

“Just watch, some giant will probably sit there and totally block our view,” I joked.

“Oh that’s a great affirmation,” Melissa sarcastically responded.

Two minutes later, the ticket holders for those seats arrived. It was a guy and his wife, and he was a very large man—both tall and wide. If anyone had filmed us from behind during the concert, you would have seen two heads bobbing back and forth, trying to see around this mountain of a man.

About halfway through the concert, an unseen announcer broadcasted over the loudspeakers that people could send questions to Josh Groban via a particular text number. I leaned over and whispered to Melissa, “You should text the question, ‘Can you find another seat for the giant guy in front of me?’”

Melissa laughed out loud and texted it to Josh.

While Melissa is the Josh Groban fan, I must say that hearing him sing live felt like a spiritual experience. After all, he’s got that tenor tone that vibrates through your entire body, especially in a concert hall. I don’t know that “tenor” is even accurate anymore. I’ve read that his vocal range is now so expansive that it’s beyond description. Regardless of how you describe him, his voice, music, and lyrics resonate with multiple generations, and hearing him in person certainly raised my level of appreciation for his music and talent.

Halfway through the concert, Josh asked audience members to stand up if they had been married for a long time. Melissa jumped up since we got married in 1986. Before I even had a chance to stand up, the giant and his wife stood up in front of Melissa and me, totally blocking Josh’s view of us. In seconds flat, Josh, who was walking down the aisle to choose someone, selected the giant and his wife to go sit on stage for some celebration wine and a few songs.

I felt bad that I hadn’t stood up fast enough to be seen, as I felt it would have made the night extra special for Melissa, but she wasn’t fazed by it at all. She was more excited that our affirmation had manifested.

“Do you realize what just happened?” she asked me.

“Yeah,” I said, jokingly. “The giant and his wife totally stole that experience from us, just like they stole our view of the concert.”

“No, silly,” she said. “You said a giant would sit in front of us and one did. And then we asked for Josh to find the giant another seat, and that happened too. He’s now sitting on the stage.”

Melissa always sees the positive.

The giant and his wife seemed to really enjoy their experience on stage, and we now had a great view of the stage again.

The Law of Attraction

There’s always been a lot of chatter about the law of attraction. You’ve probably seen the documentary, The Secret (currently on Tubi, Roku Channel, or PLEX), or read Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks. My experiences above taught me to keep it simple. All I needed to do was tell the Universe what I wanted and it arrived in some of the most unexpected ways.

I can’t say that my entire life has followed this pattern. I believe this brief period in my life was meant to teach me how simple manifesting can be. Then again, if I had to guess, I think that my openness to how easy attracting our desires can be was the reason I had these results. Doubt and skepticism as well as negative expectations are equally as powerful. I’ve certainly had times in my life when I manifested what I didn’t want simply because I expected it to come.

My issue with many teachings about the law of attraction is that some suggest we’re responsible for everything that happens to us. It’s simply not true. The big-picture wisdom that is too often omitted in books and documentaries about the law of attraction is that we have a higher power that guides us in life. I call this higher power our soul. And, unlike us, our soul has the benefit of infinite intelligence, which simply means that this higher power can see multiple chess moves down the line. Souls are unbeatable chess players, which is great because they’re playing with our lives (and always working toward our highest benefit).

Because of their infinite foresight (future insight), our souls know if what we are wishing for—what we’re trying to manifest—is going to provide us with the lessons and experiences that will serve us next week, next year, or even in the next decade.

We might want to win the lottery, but that might not coincide with our soul’s plan. Perhaps if you became a millionaire, you might not meet the love of your life. Perhaps if you healed your illness, you might not have the valuable experiences that illness is placing in your path. Perhaps if you make the varsity team, you might not get the praise you need to build your self-esteem that the JV team will provide.

The law of attraction is potent in its influence, but it’s not the only driving force in the universe. And thank goodness the force with infinite intelligence can veto our attraction power, because we humans can’t compete in the chess game of life.

The luck of the “I Wish” is merely our ability to ask spiritual guidance for what we want. And it’s not just about material possessions, we can request a change in circumstances too. Our ability to manifest our desires is super powerful, much more than most people realize. That was the point of my series of experiences attracting the concert tickets, laptop, and lawnmower. Those are material, but then the giant sitting in front of us and then getting the giant a new seat were circumstances.

Our Power of Expectation

If you narrow down the concept, the law of attraction can be narrowed down to getting what we expect. Once I manifested the Van Morrison tickets, I tested the possibilities with the laptop and lawnmower. Because I got the tickets, the success of that result led me to expect I could attract those into my life as well. But when I expected a giant to sit in front of me at the Josh Groban concert, I unintentionally got that. Of course, a skeptical mind could write that off since the giant purchased his tickets before I expected it; but getting the giant to move to another seat (in this case, sitting on the stage), is more difficult to write off.

Our power of expectation (attraction) will not work if what we’re asking for might harm others. Spiritual guidance won’t allow it. But when it comes to our own lives, our expectations can work in the positive or negative. If you understand the simple caveat that your expectations cannot override your soul’s plan or another person’s soul’s plan, you now know the only limitations on your power to manifest. Within those parameters, your power of attraction is affected by what you expect.

If I repeat an affirmation that I’m attracting abundance or love into my life but my expectation is that affirmations don’t really work, guess which intention is going to have a stronger effect. Expectations are the true intention. It’s why it can be helpful to experiment with attracting smaller things and circumstances into your life before you work on the bigger, more life-changing stuff. My stories involving tickets, a laptop, and a lawnmower are perfect examples of smaller intentions. My success with those attractions created positive expectations with matters of greater importance later in my life.

A Final Story

On this note, I want to finish with a final story. When I was in my early forties, I used to walk my dog, Libby, with a man in his eighties named Ben. Ben told me about an experience he had as a soldier when he was eighteen years old. He and several other soldiers were walking across a field when they were barraged by enemy fire. Ben was directly in the middle of all his comrades, yet he was the only soldier who wasn’t killed. He even escaped being captured as a prisoner. Because he was the only soldier to survive, Ben decided he was lucky. He believed he was guided by a higher power. Consequently, luck followed Ben wherever he went.

He told me this story because I had noticed how many stories he had shared with me involving great fortune. This particular week, Ben had just brought a painting he owned to a prominent art broker and auction house. Ben and his wife had once been invited to have dinner with someone in town, and Ben happened to comment on a painting on the wall. A few weeks later, the host of that evening stopped by Ben’s home. He gave him the painting, explaining that nobody had ever noticed the painting before and he wanted Ben to have it.

Years later, now that Ben was older, he decided to have the painting appraised. The art broker ended up selling it in auction for half a million dollars. This was just one of a long series of events that led me to give Ben the nickname, “Lucky.”

Be like Ben. See yourself as lucky and wish out loud for whatever it is you want or need.

Thanks for reading. I sure would love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate you clicking the like button.

Love,
Bob

PS, I wrote an entire book about this subject in The Magic Mala: A Story That Changes Lives. It’s a fictional story that illustrates how these concepts work in real life.

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of two books, Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and creator of the directory of psychics and mediums, BestPsychicDirectory.com. His latest venture is Bob Olson Connect, where you can read Bob’s articles before they become books.

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