The Essence of Contentment and Gratitude for Happiness (Part 1): Opening a Window Between Wishes and Reality

Translated by AI

"May Your Wishes Come True."

I used to think this was something only elders would say— like the person passing you dishes during Lunar New Year, or someone standing at the entrance of a wedding hall, smiling as they say it. It sounds gentle, yet strangely distant.

But as I grew older, I began to understand that it’s actually a sincere blessing.

Because sometimes, all we have left to hold onto is a wish. Like when you can’t reach someone late at night, and you tell yourself, “I just hope everything goes well tomorrow.” That’s a wish. Or when you’re walking home alone and the streetlight suddenly goes out, and in your heart you plead, “Please, no more bad news.” That too, is a wish.

We get through life on the strength of our wishes. But often, we forget to ask ourselves one thing: Is this wish truly my own? Or is it just a borrowed dream—something I’ve learned to want because everyone else does?

Sometimes we move too fast. Before twenty, we chase success. At thirty, we crave stability. By forty, we want proof that we haven’t gone astray. So we make wishes, work hard, struggle to reach some faraway destination— only to arrive and realize: This isn’t where I really wanted to be. It’s like ordering an expensive meal, only to discover when it arrives that you were simply hungry— not hungry for this.

Aristotle said that happiness is not about achieving something, but about the way you live your life— a way that even you, in quiet honesty, can nod to and say, yes, that’s me. Are you living truthfully? Are you responsible? Are you moderate? Do you show a little understanding when others are in pain? These small, everyday choices slowly settle into something that might look ordinary— but will give you peace when it matters most.

That is happiness.

Kant offers more of a reminder. He said: “The pursuit of happiness must not violate our moral principles.” In other words, if becoming “better” means doing things you don't truly believe in, then that kind of “better” may just be a slow drift away from who you really are.

Happiness should never require us to twist out of shape.

So I still say: “May your wishes come true.”

But now, I hope those wishes are the kind that come to you in silence— not written loudly in some goal journal, not declared under the spotlight, but the kind that quietly surfaces as you walk home with a bag of groceries, lettuce and eggs rustling inside, and a thought rises unbidden:

This life—I like it. This version of me—I want to keep.

If that’s the kind of wish you’ve made, then I wish it for you too— and I truly hope you arrive exactly where your heart already feels at home.