If I wrote an episode of Black Mirror

"Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it all"

In the future, one that may arrive sooner rather than later. A service links you up with the partner of your dreams. A dating app that is not too different from the ones that currently exist. You tell it all the details that you look for in a partner, and it finds you the one, let's say, with much better performance than those of today. 

The episode will have a few stories running in parallel, somehow interwoven with each other. They all start in a similar fashion. The user describes a dream partner, and the app finds them one. Things start off well and seem to be going great until they don't. In each story, there starts to be something that makes them regret their decision. In some cases, it's something that they weren't specific about and they realize that it's something they're struggling to deal with. In other cases, the very thing they asked for turns out to be something they no longer want in their partner.

Deep in the story's core, lies the age-old warning: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it all.

It's a saying as old as any. Plenty of people must have made this mistake in the past for it to be such a prominent warning for all. As a kid, I read the story of King Midas and his Golden Touch. As a teenager, I heard Daughtry sing it and warn me in his song, Home. 

Yet, as I begin a new chapter in my life in London, I can't help but wonder if I've been just another one in a long list of fools who chose to ignore this. Whether I turn out to be one of them, or whether London turns out to be an amazing chapter in my life, only time can tell. However, I do feel that there's a better way of warning the future generations so that the list doesn't get any longer. 

Instead of warning them to be careful what to wish for, we start teaching them to wish better? If we were to really do that, maybe we need to be communicating to them the cost of achieving something, anything. The Gold medallist in the Olympics doesn't get the luxury to eat from KFC at will. Part of what makes Ronaldo who he is are the sacrifices that he has made and continues to make every single day of his life. If instead of merely warning people to be careful what to wish for, we could make them understand the sacrifices they need to make, then maybe, just maybe, the people in this world will make choices that they don't live to regret. 

Instead of being careful what we wish for, I hope that we start wishing to not lose certain facets of our lives - be it values, people, or anything else. If we are honest about those with ourselves, maybe we can then make the sacrifices that we're truly okay with. We can then bear the cost of losing things in order to make our wishes come true. Then, we can hopefully wish for things that we truly want, and not live to regret our wishes.