What is your secret desire?

T's* View
 What's your secret desire? I have a brother who says that you can have anything you want in life, if you want it strongly enough. Well! I argued with him that I couldn't see how that could always be possible, but he was adamant that it could be done, as long as you wanted it badly enough and believed it could be achieved. "Okay," I told him, "my secret desire is to live in a luxurious home with lavish furnishings!" How was he going to manage that, I asked. He wasn't. It was entirely up to me, he said. Couldn't he at least give me a few hints, I pleaded. "Well," he countered, "what's holding you back from having the house of your dreams?" Silly question. 'Money, of course. What else?" I replied, a little condescendingly. "So," he countered, "train yourself for a job that pays a lot of money or divorce your husband and find a man who has a lot of money." - - "Are you kidding!?" I asked incredulously. "I can't do that! Even if I could train myself for a high-paying job, at my age I wouldn't have enough time to amass a fortune; and divorcing my husband is out of the question. I love the guy!" "Well," my brother replied, "then you don't want to live in a luxury house badly enough. You want to live with your husband more, and that negates the house as top priority." "Okay," I said. "I'll revise my first answer. My secret desire is to live in a luxury house with the husband I have and also with our kids." "Is that what you really want? You're sure now?" he persisted. Without hesitation, I affirmed my decision that that was truly my secret desire. "Fine," he said. "Now fix it in your mind that that's what you really want, imagine it as real, work toward that goal, and then just wait for it to happen." "That's it?" Okay, here I go. I'm picturing myself in this fabulous house with a circular driveway in front, enough parking for all our family and guests, plush carpeting throughout the house, elegant furniture and decorating, a fireplace in a cozy family room, luxurious bedrooms with adjoining baths (more than one bath would be a luxury in itself, I told myself), a sauna or jacuzzi, swimming pool, music room, game room and, while I'm at it, a cook and a maid thrown in for good measure. According to my brother, the mind can't distinguish between an imagined fact and the real thing and all it takes is a little time for reality to catch up to fantasy. "How much time?" I asked him. "It depends," he said. "On what?" I wanted to know. "On the strength of your imagination and on your determination," he answered. And that's where the rub comes in—the determination. The desire could be there, all right, but unless the determination is there also, the dream could fly right out the window, my brother says. Why does there always have to be a catch someplace? (Maybe I could win a sweepstakes?) But, who knows, by next week I may have a completely different secret desire.
 *Terri the Typesetter
T-Views - Week of May 20, 1984