Day 5: Wish List, Granted
Making space for all our wanting and our having
Welcome to Day 5 of the Outsourced Optimism Lightly Festive Digital Advent Calendar. Click here to learn more about this small seasonal series or to unwrap all the gifts in the archives.
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This year, I started writing a letter to Santa. Iāve been having a hard time thinking about what I want and this exercise felt like a whimsical workaround. Like maybe my inner child is a little more tapped into my desire and creatively stepping into her shoes would help.
But, instead of feeling better or more clear, I started getting frustrated. Everything on my list felt so redundant. Like Iāve just been making the same list over and over again for years. Turns out, the problem isnāt that I donāt know what I want, itās that Iām tired of (still) wanting the same things.Ā
Then, over Thanksgiving, my father-in-law pulled out his Notes app where he keeps a running list of every Christmas gift idea weāve given him over the years and tracks anything heās heard us casually say weād like to have.
To see if these ideas were still current, he listed them off out loud. I donāt know how far back his list went, but when he got to me, every single item had been checked off. There were a few things I no longer needed or wanted, but almost everything was something I didnāt just have, it was something I had had for so long I couldnāt even remember not having it.Ā
Wanting can change so quickly to Having that itās easy to forget.
My list (and this feeling) werenāt really holiday specific. Most things werenāt material objects or anything that Santa or anyone else could give me. But, whether you celebrate the holidays or not, the bright abundance of this season can really shine a light on any areas of lack.
Sometimes the discrepancies in home and family and friends and joy and love and success feel so great, so fixed, it can be hard to believe we will ever get what we want. And that can make it really hard to rememberĀ any of the times when weāve gotten what we asked for.
So, now Iām making two lists and Iām inviting you to do this with me:
A Wish List of things weāre (still) wanting
A Granted Wishes List to remind us of things we currently have that we wished for in the pastĀ
If it feels lighter or more fun, you can address these to Santa, but know they are not limited to any holiday and, while clothes and books and games can be an easier place to start, these donāt have to be lists of āthingsā at all.