when i think back to childhood fables, i see now they weren’t just stories, they were primers. foreshadowing. preparing us for truths we would need later.

the genie in the bottle wasn’t about fantasy. it was a rehearsal for how to live. it was teaching us the tool: ask, declare, believe you are worthy of the thing you desire.

but for so long, i couldn’t. i asked small. i asked sideways. i negotiated with my own longing because i didn’t think i deserved the fullness of what i wanted. i asked for a lesser version, and then i accepted that lesser version when it showed up.

at the beginning of last year, i made a declaration, almost playfully, almost like a dare to myself. i asked how i could become a millionaire by the end of 2025. i didn’t hold expectation. i didn’t map the path. i just named it.

what followed didn’t feel like labor. i didn’t grind myself into exhaustion or wake up with dread. instead, i floated. i followed joy. i listened to the creative downloads that kept coming and let them carry me. one project, then another, then another, until suddenly i was holding work i loved, work that could sustain me, work that might very well be the road to the thing i had asked for.

and today i realize: the genie has been God all along. the universe was never withholding. it was simply waiting, waiting for me to ask from a place of worthiness, waiting for me to believe i could hold what i said out loud.

the fable was the foreshadowing. the wish was the tool. the lesson was always this:ask fully, root yourself in the truth that you deserve what you desire, and trust joy as the path.

the universe has been waiting for you, loving you the whole time, ready to hand you exactly what you dared to ask for.