Be careful what you wish for

Be Careful What You Wish For

How would you use wishes if they were given to you? Let’s say that you have been granted 3 wishes you can use them as you will.

There are those wishes that are worldly and altruistic, such as wishing for world peace, or the end of diseases or bigotry. How about wishing for the end of homelessness. Those have many implications. If no one got sick what would be the effect on a growing population with limited resources. I’m sure there would be some negative consequences for peace or end of hate and bigotry as there always are when it comes to wishes, but at the moment I can’t think of any.

Then there are the personal, selfish, wishes such as wealth, get more wishes and immortality. Those usually also come with a cost. King Midas ended up turning his daughter to gold. Wishing for more wishes usually comes with a caveat that you forget about and then it turns out bad for you, like don’t wish for anything that goes against nature, and you end up being turned to dust. And immortality means you are left alone as others you love die and even when the world ends, you’re still there.

Now for a twist in your thinking. Suppose you are given 3 wishes with a time limit as to their effectiveness. You can wish for whatever you want, but whatever you wish for stops 24 hours after the wish.

Now wishing for money might work, because though getting more money might stop, you might be able to do something with the money you did get.

Altruistic wishes become more of a problem. World peace that only lasts for 24 hours would be great for the 24 hour period, but then what; do you go back to what it was or is there a rebound effect and everything gets worse. Same with diseases, hate, and bigotry.

If given this time-based choice I would spread my wishes out over a 24 hour period. That would at least hopefully space out my wishes for almost 72 hours.  I also like thinking about time travel, both into the past and into the future. What if I use my wishes to travel through time and use the last wish to bring myself back to where I got the wishes in the first place. I hopefully could then convince myself, or as myself, get my 3 wishes again and continue to use them to study different aspects of the past and future.

Just my luck, during one of my time travels, I’d be killed by some disease that someone didn’t find a cure for, or bigot that didn’t like the fact that time travelers were really the devil in disguise and would burn me at the stake, or I would die during some war, past or future, caused by me choosing to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; and thus, never get to make that return wish that gets me my wishes again.

I guess that is the way of wishes. It’s better to work with what you have and make the best of it than to risk a free wish and lose it all.