Wishing and Assuming Are Two Different Things

The subtle crack in the sentence

Picture two sentences. The first: “I wish I felt better.” The second: “I feel good.” They sound similar, but they mean something entirely different. The first sentence states that you don’t feel good right now. It sketches a lack. The second sentence states a condition in which the lack no longer appears.

This is exactly where the difference lies, the one most people overlook. Wishing and assuming feel related, because both deal with something good. But their inner movement is opposite. The wish points at something that’s missing. The assumption lives as if it were already here.

Why wishing alone moves nothing

A wish is honest, and it’s also the beginning. Without the impulse that something could be different, nothing would ever stir. The problem isn’t the wish itself. The problem is when it stays put as a wish.

Whoever wishes for something while inwardly, continuously feeling that they don’t have it, keeps the distance alive. They keep building out the future, imagining how lovely it would be, and overlook that the whole time they’re experiencing themselves as someone who lacks it. This is the point where longing tips over into pure daydreaming. You circle around a state without ever entering it.

Think of someone who has wished for more peace for years. They talk about it, they plan, they imagine how relaxed they’ll one day be. And this is precisely the trap: as long as peace remains a goal on the horizon, every thought confirms that they don’t have it now. The wish feeds on the lack. It can’t do otherwise.

What assuming really means

Assuming means taking on the feeling you would have if the thing had already happened. Not the feeling of standing just before the goal, but the calm, matter-of-fact feeling of someone for whom it is already reality.

At first this sounds like a trick, but it’s something very sober. Just ask yourself: how would I think, speak, and behave if what I wish for had long been part of my life? How would I get up in the morning? What would I no longer worry about? The moment you take on this stance, you stop reaching for something. You live inside it.

That is the movement from wanting to being. As long as you want, you are separated from the thing. The moment you assume it as given, the separation disappears. And a person who lives this way makes different decisions, says different things, moves through their day differently. Not because they’re forcing themselves, but because they act out of a different state.

The assumption needs no proof

The hardest part of it: the assumption doesn’t ask whether the circumstances permit it. It even sets itself against what the senses report. Your bank account says one thing, your calendar says another, the voice in your head lists all the reasons why it isn’t so right now. Assuming means kindly ignoring this entire transcript of the present and instead giving the inner state more weight than the outer findings.

This isn’t suppression. You don’t deny that the rent is due or that there was an argument. You simply refuse to make that finding your permanent residence. The sense impression is a photo from yesterday. Your assumption is the place where tomorrow comes into being.

Effortless is best

Here the next mistake often happens. People hear “assume” and begin to strain. They cling to the feeling, press, control, constantly check whether it’s working yet. That is wishing all over again, just with more effort. Because whoever holds on with strain betrays that they secretly believe it could slip away from them.

Calm assumption works differently. It’s more like coming home than a feat of strength. You take on the state, and then you leave it alone. You don’t have to guard it the whole time. A person who knows they’re married doesn’t verify it hourly. They simply live as a married person. Your assumption is allowed to be that quiet too.

A suggestion for everyday life

Take a single thing where you catch yourself wishing. Something you’ve longed for for a long time and that seems only to keep moving further away.

And then phrase the wish differently for once. Not “I’d like to have,” but in the present, as an existing fact. Stay in it for a moment and notice which feeling comes with it. Relief? Gratitude? A certain matter-of-factness? That feeling is the real thing. Not the sentence, but the state it puts you in.

Don’t do this as an exercise meant to force something, but as a way of briefly living somewhere else. The evening, before you fall asleep, is a good time, because that’s when you control the least. Return there again and again, without checking whether something has already happened outside.

Wishing shows you what you want. Useful for finding the direction. But it’s only the address, not the house. The assumption is the step over the threshold. And that step costs you nothing but the willingness to stop, for a moment, being someone who lacks something.