...What do you wish for? My senior classes are currently studying The Arabian Nights: Tales from One Thousand and One Nights and we've been reading the story and watching the Disney film of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. As a journal entry, I asked my students "If a magic genie gave you three wishes, what would you wish for?" They listed items that one would expect of teenagers - money, a date with Kim Kardashian, fame, a big house, a date with Kim Kardashian. <smh> I don't get the Kim Kardashian part. They decided to turn it around and asked me what I would wish for. I couldn't immediately answer. I had to give it some thought...
Hmmm. I always think that perhaps these 'wishes' might have consequences attached to them. For instances, if you wish for $1,000,000, a family member dies and you get an insurance settlement for that amount. Okay, I know I've read the short story, The Monkey's Paw, way too often, which has that specific plot line. While coming up with my three wishes, I tried to think of consequence free wishes. I'm also going with the wish rules that the genie gave in the Disney movie: (i) can't wish for more wishes, (ii) can't wish for love, (iii) can't wish anyone dead (which I would never do anyway) and (iv) can't bring anyone back from the dead.
I thought long and hard about this all day and most of the wishes I thought of seemed to have consequences attached. Here's what I finally came up with. Let me know if you see any consequences from these wishes.
The first wish would have to be: world peace. I know that's very Miss America/Pollyannaish but seriously, that would be the best wish for everyone. How amazing would it be if we never had to send another son or daughter off to die in a war? The second would be: everyone should have to abide by 'if you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all'. My original thought was that everyone needed to be honest, but then if everyone were always brutally honest then people would get their feelings hurt, therefore I amended it. Granted there would be a lot of people walking around mute all the time, but is that necessarily a bad thing? The final one would probably be to eradicate cancer. After going through cancer treatment and successfully beating the disease, I know first hand about how horrendous it is to deal with and the world would definitely be a better place without cancer in it.
The first wish would have to be: world peace. I know that's very Miss America/Pollyannaish but seriously, that would be the best wish for everyone. How amazing would it be if we never had to send another son or daughter off to die in a war? The second would be: everyone should have to abide by 'if you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all'. My original thought was that everyone needed to be honest, but then if everyone were always brutally honest then people would get their feelings hurt, therefore I amended it. Granted there would be a lot of people walking around mute all the time, but is that necessarily a bad thing? The final one would probably be to eradicate cancer. After going through cancer treatment and successfully beating the disease, I know first hand about how horrendous it is to deal with and the world would definitely be a better place without cancer in it.
What would you wish for?
2 comments:
I wish the Yankees weren't getting swept this series! :-)
LOL!! I wish I had thought of that wish! Drat! Can I take one of my wishes back?
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