Getting Exactly What You Want Can Be a Terrible Curse
If I asked you to name three things you want in life you could probably tell me quite easily.
“I want to find my soulmate.”
“I want to find a job that makes me a lot of money and I actually don’t hate.”
“I want to become recognized and respected by others.”
But what we seldom think about when we state what we want is how it will impact our lives once we get it. The assumption is that getting what we want will make us happy.
The myth of King Midas tells us a cautionary tale about biting off more than we can chew.
King Midas was a wealthy king who loved gold and money. He spent his days counting his gold coins and bathing himself in gold objects.
However, his love for gold was about to be amplified a thousand fold after helping care for a companion of Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry.
As a reward for his hospitality, Dionysus offered to grant Midas any wish. Midas pondered for a moment then said, “I want whatever I touch to turn into gold.”
Dionysus offered a warning, but Midas was set. And so Dionysus told him the next day everything he touched would turn to gold.
The next day Midas awoke and discovered to his delight that everything he touched indeed turned into gold!
But that delight was short lived.
Midas found that he could not eat because the grapes and bread instantly turned into gold. But this was not the worst part...
His daughter, whom he loved dearly, ran up to him for a hug. The instant he touched her she froze into a gold statue.
Wrought with despair Midas pleaded to Dionysus to take the golden touch from him.
Dionysus instructed Midas to go the Pactolus river and wash his hands in it. As Midas did so he saw gold flowing from his hands into the river.
Upon returning home Midas found that everything he had touched had returned to normal, including his beloved daughter.
Thereafter Midas became a more generous king.
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The most common interpretation of this myth is that greed leads to one’s destruction.
I’d like to present a different interpretation: sometimes the very things we most want are the very things we are NOT ready for.
Many people will say they want their dream partner and that they are finally ready for love. It’s a beautiful desire, but here’s my question to you. Would you still want it if it required that you surrender your ego? Would you still want that dream partner if it meant seeing all the ways you try to control love to fit your preferences?
The late Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran wrote a poem titled “On Love.” It is the most powerful poem I have read about love and what love will require of you. Here’s one line from that poem:
“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.”
-Kahlil Gibran
This is precisely what it took to finally meet my wife after being single for over 13 years. If I had met her any earlier than when I did, I would not have been who I needed to be to make the relationship work.
My preparation for meeting my wife required that I go through an ego death. This was a necessary initiation for pruning and refining my heart and character so I could truly honor and cherish her. I wrote about it in a series of letters where I describe 3 ego deaths that transformed me. Meeting me wife was one of them. You can read about it here.
While some people want love, others will say that they want to become rich. They want money so they can have the power to buy everything they ever wanted.
There’s nothing wrong with that. But will you accept the responsibility that comes with having more money?
The stories of lottery winners who won millions then lost it all in a matter of years illustrate that having money does not equate to possessing the wisdom to know how to steward it.
Take the example of Michael Carroll who won ~$15 million dollars when he was just 19 years old.
Money is an amplifier. It will amplify our light and it will amplify our shadows. Most of the time we only think of the light while ignoring the shadows of our psyche. Carroll got to see those shadows up close and personal. He later expressed that going broke and returning to work as a garbage man saved him from the downward spiral of drug addiction.
Carroll’s story is a great example of a modern day King Midas. He got what we wanted only to later realize that it was actually a curse.
While Midas and Carroll are stories of people who got what they wanted, there are also many cases where people do not get want they want when they want it.
I myself have many times felt spurned by life because I didn’t get what I wanted when I wanted it. I’d gaze at others from the shadows of envy and think, “Why should they get it instead of me? How come others get the fast lane while I’ve been put in the snail lane?” Eventually, I extracted the wisdom from the delayed gratification of my desires which is this:
The myth of King Midas’s golden touch teaches us that what we desire will also demand something of us. It will reveal whether or not we embody the quality of character and wisdom to support our desires. This can take place either through the granting of our desires or the delay/denial of our desires.
Should your desires be granted you will quickly see how it affects your character. The golden touch will amplify your generosity of heart as well as shadows of greed and hedonism. It can break you or it can be exactly what refines your character.
Should your desire be delayed or denied you will also see how it affects your character. It will reveal the sincerity of your heart as well as shadows of entitlement. It can break you or it can also refine your character.
If you’re someone who finds yourself in the latter camp of having to tolerate the delay or denial of your desires, here is my encouragement to you born out of my own internal wrestling: the blessing in not yet receiving what you desire in life is that you’re given the opportunity to mature in wisdom and character. So when it does arrive, you have become the version of you who knows how to honor and cherish it.
Thank you for taking the time to read.
If you are interested in topics such as:
Psychospiritual inner work
Jungian depth psychology + shadow work
Relationships as a catalyst for growth and evolution
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Peace,
Roy