Unanswered Prayers

There is a famous quote from The Alchemist that goes, “…when you want something all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”

It is a classic positive-thinking line. It’s something that feels too new age and woo-woo to be worth believing for a serious person, but I’ve found it to be remarkably true in my life.

The times in my past when I’ve decided that I want something, and I’ve resolved that I’m willing to do what it takes to get it, then things feel like they have fallen into place in a very serendipitous way.

Not in the day-to-day, kind of want something way, but in clear-headed moments of reflection when I’ve thought it through and made a decision about a big change to my life. Each time there have been some early obstacles, but undeterred I’ve continued on and then luck and grace have made it feel easier than I expected.

On the other hand, there have been moments in my life when I have felt a strong desire for things, set goals and made plans to achieve them, and then felt that I couldn’t get out of my own way to make progress.

Projects that I’ve wanted to work on, but when I go to work on them I’ve been plagued by intense procrastination. In the moment I’ve felt frustrated with myself and worked to overcome the resistance and conquer the things that have been starting in my way.

Looking back, on these moments I’m reminded of another famous line, “sometimes God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”

In most of the cases where I’ve felt like I was running into an invisible wall trying to work, with the gift of time I realize that there were real gifts in the unanswered desire. I felt more conflicted about the things I was working on than I realized at the time.

This hasn’t been true 100% of the time. There are things I’ve wanted that I continue to want, but that I haven’t been able to achieve yet. But the more I work, the more I realize that sometimes there is a force greater than you guiding the results. Sometimes what feels like a failure, turns out to be a gift.