… because you just might get it.
This Chinese proverb, in my view, holds an extraordinary kernel of wisdom—a wisdom that cuts straight to the core of human nature and therefore seems to apply to all cultures and in all times.
Consider the Greek legend of King Midas. Obsessed with gold, Midas wished for more and more of it; in fact, he wished to be able to turn everything to gold. This rash and dangerous wish was granted, in the form of the famous “Midas touch.” For a brief time, the king was happy with his newfound power and boundless wealth … until he touched his beloved daughter, who was promptly changed from a loving, laughing human being into a lifeless golden statue.
After all these centuries, the Midas story still rings true and packs a punch. Why? Two reasons, I think. The first is that it is a perfect illustration of the serious and sometimes tragic irony of life. A longed-for gift becomes a terrible burden. The fulfillment of a fantasy turns into a disaster. But note: This cruel irony doesn’t just happen to Midas; he brings it about himself. This is a story about human nature, not the wrath of the gods. Midas’s irony comes from within—from a basic confusion between what he thinks will make him happy, and what is truly important in his life.
The second reason the Midas story still speaks to us across the centuries is that it remains a resonant if painful metaphor of one of the dangers facing wealthy parents. What happens to the kids if the parents put the pursuit of money above all else? Are they, in some figurative sense, turned into golden statues?
This is a question we’ll return to in due course. For now, however, let’s consider some other instances of wishes being granted—and of the unforeseen consequences that ensued.
I know a man who had a long and mostly happy career as an editor of a glossy national magazine. He started as an assistant, answering phones and making coffee while learning the rudiments of the business. Then, over the course of twenty years, he moved up through the ranks. His rise was not flashy or meteoric, but slow and steady, based on growing expertise and a network of colleagues who were, in turn, rising to more senior positions. At length he was promoted to executive editor, the number two spot on the masthead.
This, as it happened, was the perfect job for him. As executive editor, he had discretion to choose writers and assign stories; he also had time to do the hands-on editing, shaping articles and making them better. Those were things he was really good at; equally or maybe even more important, those were things he liked doing.
As for the job of editor in chief, that called for a somewhat different temperament and entailed a different set of tasks. The editor in chief was responsible for budgets and had to deal with the corporate politics of the parent company. He was the public face of the magazine and had to spend a lot of time entertaining and making official appearances. As at most magazines, the editor in chief had little or no time left over to actually edit.
“I loved being number two,” my acquaintance recalls. “I loved being able to sit quietly in my office with a manuscript. I loved having that layer of insulation between me and the suits.”
But then the editor in chief decided to retire, and the formerly contented number two started wishing for the top job. Why?
“The promotion carried a substantial raise,” this fellow says, “but it wasn’t really about the money. It was more about ego. I wanted finally to see my name in bigger type at the top of the masthead. And it was also about how I’d feel if I didn’t get the job. I’d feel dissed, humiliated. And if I was passed over, it would be a public embarrassment—or public within the industry at least.”
All those feelings are understandable, I guess; unfortunately, though, they have almost nothing to do with the day-to-day reality of being editor in chief of a magazine. So my acquaintance was putting himself in the perverse but entirely human position of wishing for something that, in fact, would not make him happy.
For better or worse, his wish was granted. He got the job and the raise and the corner office. He also got a lot of bellyaches and sleepless nights. He resigned after two frustrating and stress-filled years.
Could this story have had a happier ending? In theory, sure. This fellow could have taken himself out of the running for the editor in chief position and made it clear that it was his choice to stay on at number two. But how many people would really have done that?
Again, it seems to be an ingrained facet of human nature to confuse what we really want with what we think we want. Add to that tendency the social pressure that goes with what we think we should want—a raise, a promotion, public recognition—and it becomes extremely challenging to make decisions in accordance with our happiness, rather than with our sometimes misguided wishes.
Our society eggs us on to reach for the brass ring, whether we want the silly thing or not! It’s a rare person who can resist the temptation and the pressure.
I don’t know how many people remember the name Louis Lefkowitz. For more than a decade during the 1960s and ’70s, he served as attorney general of New York State. A man of impeccable integrity, he served with equal success under Democratic and Republican governors. For all his time in public office, he seemed to have no enemies, no detractors. When Nelson Rockefeller died in office, Lefkowitz was asked to become lieutenant governor, in preparation for his own run at the state’s top office. Everyone seemed to agree he would win in a landslide.
Lefkowitz turned down the promotion. He already had the job that was right for him, the job he really enjoyed. He simply shrugged off the idea of becoming governor, saying to the press, “Why take a job you don’t really want? Why be unhappy?”
This bit of candor and wisdom was regarded as so refreshingly unusual that the New York Times featured it on the top of page one, as the quote of the day.
But really, why should Lefkowitz’s attitude seem so rare? All of us, in our various ways, face the choice of pursuing a higher rung of the ladder, or not. Most people, it seems, are inclined to keep chasing the next wish.
But maybe the happier people—the ones most in sync with their own lives—are the ones who recognize and honor and savor the wishes that have already come true.
The dangers of wishing take many forms.
One of them is that wishing can sometimes pose as a substitute for preparation. Serious wishing, after all, takes a lot of energy, a lot of focus. It’s understandable, therefore, that people sometimes kid themselves that hoping something will happen is the same as getting ready to deal with it when it does.
These are two different things!
Wishing is not the same as preparing. Hoping is not the same as getting ready. I say this on good authority, because one of the biggest blunders of my own professional life came from the confusion of these concepts.
Some backstory is in order. I’ve mentioned that, when I left San Francisco and moved to Milwaukee, part of my motivation was the desire to expand my musical horizons. I still enjoyed writing for commercials—and I certainly enjoyed getting paid for it. But I was beginning to chafe at the limitations of the form; some of my musical thoughts, after all, needed more than thirty seconds to express! Also, as I got a little older and as the novelty of professional acceptance started wearing off, I began to be dogged by the question of what my music was for. Did it exist merely to help sell a product? Wasn’t there some higher purpose the music could be serving? Wasn’t there some layer of meaning and fulfillment that was way beyond what I had experienced so far?
From questions like these, and from my growing restlessness, a wish was born: I wished for the opportunity to write for film.
This wish, I suppose, was presumptuous, though not entirely without foundation. Through my writing for commercials, I had learned the craft of matching music to pictures; on a tiny scale, I was already using music to advance a narrative. True, it was quite a leap to go from a thirty-second commercial to a two-hour feature film, but that was okay, because a leap into the unknown was exactly what I was hankering for.
The only problem, of course, was how to make it happen.
The conventional wisdom held that if you wanted to work in the movies, in whatever capacity, you needed to move to L.A. That’s where the connections got made, where the deals were done. If you wanted to break into the entertainment business, you put in your time at the meetings and the parties; you networked and you schmoozed. You didn’t burst on the scene from an outpost two time zones away.
But here I learned a lesson from my father—not so much a conscious lesson as a temperamental affinity. When my father started Berkshire Hathaway, New York—even more than today, when things have become relatively decentralized—was the absolute center of the financial world. If you wanted a career on “Wall Street,” you went to Wall Street, period.
My father saw it otherwise. Instinctively, he grasped the dangers of group-think. Too many people chasing the same thing in the same place seemed to lead, inevitably, to muddled reasoning and a herd mentality. Jargon took the place of real ideas; knowing who was who became a poor substitute for knowing what was what. The old cliché had it that the cream would rise to the top, but in fact it was probably just as true that most people got homogenized. So my father stayed in Omaha and did things his own way, trusting to his own ideas and methods.
By a somewhat similar mental process, I decided to skip Los Angeles and move to Milwaukee. I was hoping to develop my own sound, my own brand. How could I do that if I was chasing the same jobs as everybody else, trying to write in this month’s fashionable style or to ape the success of a recently successful soundtrack?
Not that I turned my back on the nuts-and-bolts realities of how the movie business worked. In my plodding, hardheaded Midwestern way, I tried my damnedest to figure out the puzzle and find a way in.
One of the things I learned was that, in almost all movie projects, the music is the last component to be added. The visuals are shot, the film is edited, then the music is dubbed in. Still, it’s useful for the director to have at least a rough idea of how the eventual soundtrack will work, so film editors often use “temp music” when putting together a movie. They find a recording that sort of fits; if the director likes the feel of it, then the person who made the recording has the inside track at getting the gig to score the movie.
My first order of business, then, was to get a CD recorded and distributed. Fortunately for me, New Age music was surging in popularity at the time, and, broadly speaking, that was the idiom I was writing in. My first album, The Waiting, was released on Narada in 1987. I’m proud to say that it was critically well received and was at least modestly successful in the marketplace. But I could only hope that it was finding its way into the ears of film editors and moviemakers.
For better or worse, The Waiting turned out to be the perfect title for that album. I released it … and I waited. And I waited some more. Let me be clear that nothing happened quickly here!
Meanwhile, I started thinking about a second album. Everything being relative, a first album is easy. It uses up all the little scraps that have been stuck in drawers over the years, all the tunes and motifs that have been kicking around waiting to be explored and expanded. But a second album calls for fresh inspiration. And, for a number of difficult and dispiriting months, I didn’t know where that inspiration would come from.
Then a close family friend gave me a book. It was Son of the Morning Star, by Evan S. Connell, and it absolutely captivated me. The narrative encompassed much of the history of the Plains Indians in late-nineteenth-century America. It told of their constant forced marches, the broken promises and ugly atrocities committed against them by a government intent on expansion at any cost. Reading that book, I was both moved and outraged. I also felt a nagging and surprisingly personal sense of loss. It wasn’t only the Native Americans who had been displaced and deprived of much of their ancient culture; all of us had lost something when those Native traditions were trampled, when the old wisdom was scattered and devalued.
Inevitably, my strong reaction to Son of the Morning Star found its way into my work. I would not presume to say that I was writing Native American music; rather, I was trying in my own manner to understand and honor a certain tradition, to express my reverence and nostalgia for a way of life that had nearly been destroyed. These feelings largely shaped my second album, One By One, which was released in 1989.
Soon after this album was released—and four years after I’d first hatched my wish of writing for the movies—I learned that Kevin Costner was making a film based on the life of the Plains Indians in the nineteenth century. Was this serendipity, or what? My album could hardly have been more on-message if I’d written it as an audition piece.
Through a rather tenuous connection from my Stanford days, I was able to get the recording to Costner. Kevin loved it and asked me to score the film. Just like that, my long-held wish was about to be fulfilled.
Or was it?
There was, it seemed, one small problem: I didn’t actually know how to write a film score!
In retrospect, this is a real head-scratcher, but it happens to be true. In some ways, false modesty aside, I’d done a pretty savvy job of finessing my way toward the movie business. And yet I’d somehow managed to overlook the most basic requirement of all. Consumed by wishing, distracted by daydreams (and, in fairness to myself, busy with lots of other projects), I hadn’t done the hard work of actually learning the craft. Somewhere along the line, I’d fallen into the trap of imagining that sheer desire would prepare me to seize my opportunity. Or that the perfect mentor would miraculously appear at the pivotal moment. Or that a studio head would see me as a diamond in the rough and just “take me as I am.”
Surprise: None of that happened.
Too late, I started playing catch-up. I consulted with more experienced composers on orchestration. I gave myself a crash course in the technical side of moviemaking. But I knew, deep down, that I was ill-prepared, and the lack of self-assurance showed. In spite of myself, the message I sent was: This guy isn’t ready.
Under other circumstances, I might perhaps have been able to persuade the studio that I was a quick study and they should take a chance on me. But there were complicating factors here. Aren’t there always? Kevin Costner, while a well-established actor, was a first-time director; that made people nervous. The film he was planning, Dances with Wolves, was long, expensive, and thoroughly unconventional; that made people nervous, too. An unproven composer was apparently one too many things to be nervous about.
So I lost the gig but I learned a lesson. Two lessons, in fact.
The first one is about the nature of lucky breaks. I recorded an album inspired by the Plains Indians; Kevin Costner needed music for a film about the Plains Indians. What could be luckier than that?
But there’s a big difference between a lucky break and a free pass. A lucky break seldom means that things are suddenly easy; rather, a lucky break often comes as an opportunity to rise to a challenge, to do something difficult. But you have to prove worthy of the lucky break by being ready to seize it.
This brings me to the second lesson, which is, of course, about preparation. Could I have written an acceptable score for Dances with Wolves? I honestly believe I could have. But it would have involved a fair amount of learning on the fly, and that wasn’t good enough. There’s a subtle distinction, I believe, between being capable of doing something and being truly prepared to do it.
Meaningful preparation calls for a good deal of work in advance—confronting possible difficulties, thinking through potential pitfalls. This forethought, in turn, allows for clarity. Clarity is what allows us to demonstrate, both to ourselves and to those who might employ us, that we are truly up to the job at hand. That level of preparation is what earns true confidence.
My near-miss at getting to write the full score for Dances with Wolves did not turn out to be a total loss. Costner eventually asked me to compose a small piece called “Firedance”—a mere two minutes long, but, in my honest opinion, a pretty interesting rhythmic exercise and, more important, a thematic challenge as well. In those two minutes, I tried to capture and compress the essence of the story—to convey the mystery and excitement of a man transformed before our very eyes and ears. Coupled with great visuals and Costner’s almost mystical intensity, the scene really clicked.
For me, then, getting to write “Firedance” was more than a consolation prize; it was a chance to demonstrate that I could, in fact, write effectively for the movies. Writing part of a movie, rather than taking on responsibility for the whole grand sweep, was probably what was appropriate to my knowledge at the time. So, in that sense, I got my wish of writing for film, and the story has a happy ending.
Even so, I made a couple more mistakes in connection with “Firedance.” Again, these were errors that came from my being inadequately prepared to face the realities of business and the requirements of my craft.
To the surprise of the skeptics, Dances with Wolves went on to become both a critical and popular success. A soundtrack album was a natural follow-up, but the main composer of the score, John Barry, did not want my music included in the playlist. In his view, it was his soundtrack, period; I more or less accepted that.
In retrospect, this was a blunder. It’s not my way to raise my voice or stamp my feet, but there are professional and totally appropriate ways to fight for one’s interests, and in this case I failed to do so. The stakes were real: meaningful exposure for my music. But I was not prepared to accept the harsh reality that sometimes even colleagues have to butt heads on matters of turf. I wanted to believe I was being a nice guy by not fighting to be included on the soundtrack; but in fact I was abdicating part of what it means to be a professional. I was more intent on avoiding conflict than in making the most of my work.
My other mistake with regard to “Firedance” had less to do with the frictions of business and more to do with the demands of craft.
Since my piece was not included in the Dances with Wolves soundtrack, I was able to negotiate the right to put it on my third album, Lost Frontier. This was good. Instrumental music stations were playing my stuff; the success of the Costner film brought a wider audience to music with a Native American influence. But there was a fundamental problem with “Firedance.” It was a two-minute piece, and two-minute pieces just didn’t get played much on the radio.
I should have expanded it to a three-or four-minute song. But I didn’t. Why not? I could play the purist card and say that the piece was meant to run two minutes, not three, end of story. But that kind of artistic stubbornness usually gets you nowhere, and can sometimes be a mask for a simple limitation of craft. The honest answer is that I didn’t expand “Firedance” into a radio-friendly format because, at the time, I didn’t know how. I just couldn’t hear it.
Again, this suggests the distinction between ability and preparedness. If I’d been truly prepared for the opportunity to write “Firedance,” I would have anticipated its possible success and the implications that went with it. I would have planned for its possible expansion or translation into other forms. I would have been ready to make more of it than in fact I did. But my wish had been to have my music in a feature film; I hadn’t thought beyond that wish.
Which leads me to yet another dangerous thing about wishes.
Too often, I think, people see the fulfillment of a wish as a consummation, as the end of a process. But doesn’t it make more sense to see a wish coming true as a beginning, as the start of something? The real excitement and the real fulfillment lie in seeing where that wish can lead.
Before leaving this issue of wishes and their dangers, let’s turn the whole subject upside down and see how it looks from the opposite angle: What happens when wishes aren’t granted?
Life may not be fair, but it often turns out to be surprisingly symmetrical, and I think an instance of that symmetry applies here. Consider: Just as the granting of a wish—as in the case of Midas—can sometimes prove to be a curse, the thwarting of a wish can sometimes end up being a hidden blessing.
In both instances, the same mechanism is at play: a confusion between what we think we want and what we really want. When a wish is denied—when we don’t get what we think we want—we are forced to look farther afield, to think harder and more deeply about what we really want, what would truly make us happy. Sometimes a wish that doesn’t come true is in fact a liberation.
Let me offer an example.
I know a young woman who comes from a family of lawyers. She was a serious and focused student, and, after a quite successful undergraduate career, she was accepted to one of the leading East Coast law schools. Wanting to make the most of the summer in between, she applied for an internship with a major New York corporate law firm.
She had good reason to believe that this was a fine way to jump-start a career. Her older sister had taken the same route, advancing from unpaid internships to paid ones, then to an associate’s position on a clear track to partner. That first summer internship was a completely reasonable thing to wish for.
But she didn’t get it. This was not her fault. Her academic credentials were as impressive as her sister’s. I have no doubt that she gave every bit as good of an interview. But the world had changed. Business had slowed, law firms were contracting. With less work to go around, there was not much need for interns, and there were far fewer associate positions to dangle as eventual rewards. It was a clear case of life just not being fair.
The disappointment of her wish left the young woman understandably frustrated, angry, and, for a brief time, bewildered. A disappointed wish, after all, is a kind of small death; it calls for a letting-go, and letting go never comes easily or without some period of grieving and transition.
But there was still the question of how she’d spend her summer, and she didn’t have the luxury of a lot of time to mope. She ended up taking a very modest-paying internship with a large environmental nonprofit on Long Island.
“I went in with a chip on my shoulder,” she admits. “I felt like I was settling for a very distant second choice. The office work was totally routine. My bad attitude made it even worse. I just sort of refused to find it interesting.”
Then something changed. The young woman was invited to accompany her more senior colleagues on their fieldwork, visiting wetlands and pine barrens and other environmentally fragile areas that her organization was working to protect.
“It was amazing,” she recalls. “I was just so happy out there in my muddy boots. I felt energized, curious about everything, like a monkey let out of the cage. And I started thinking very hard about whether I wanted to spend my working life in a law office, under artificial light, wearing business suits and stockings, when I could be out here in khaki shorts and sunshine.”
So what did this young woman decide to do? The story is still playing out. She’s started law school as planned, though with a determination to focus on environmental, rather than corporate, matters. She says she might end up practicing law, working for the kind of nonprofit that would call for a certain amount of fieldwork; or she might jettison law altogether and segue into some branch of natural science. Stay tuned!
Whatever her eventual decision, however, the point is this: It was the denial of her first wish that allowed her to change course—to reevaluate her options and to discover a life that was more truly her own. If she’d gotten her first choice, why would she have deviated from what she thought she wanted?
Wishes steer us toward a certain longed-for destination; they tend to focus our attention on a particular pinpoint of a goal. And that’s fine; having goals and reaching them can be a great source of self-respect and joy.
But there’s a danger, too. A pinpoint goal can blind us to the universe of choices that exist in every imaginable direction. When a goal isn’t reached—when a wish is denied—it forces us to rub our eyes and look again at a wider world.