I opened my eyes, said, “Time to go manifest my reality,” and got out of bed to head to the meditation room.
My wife rolled over, yanking the blankets back. “Just don’t make it all about winning the lottery.”
“I’m not,” I muttered, trying to stay zen and not stomp across the hall.
The law of attraction had totally worked for her the day before and she didn’t even believe in it. I was the one who told her about E², a book of experiments to prove that your thoughts can become reality. Like, if you think of seeing a purple car, then all you see are purple cars on the road.
I’d been sitting at the kitchen island, reading the Amazon reviews out loud. Five stars from a woman who needed money for her kids, and that night at her job as a server in a casino, someone hit the slots again and again and again, each time tipping her until she had exactly the amount she needed. Crazy.
“You just have to put your intention out to the universe and it’ll come to you in forty-eight hours. At least that’s what the book says.”
She actually pouted. “I think I have been putting it out there to get this office rented.”
Right. Her psychotherapy office. The first six months of covid left a giant question mark over everything. By the time fall came around, every rent check she wrote had hardened into frustration that calcified into depression.
She came over for a hug and I wrapped my arms around her. “Maybe you didn’t really mean it before. Do you mean it now? Let’s put it out there.” I nestled my face into her neck and gave her a quick kiss, focusing on her wish.
Not two hours later, she got a response from the ad that had been languishing in the depths of Craigslist. I gave her a wink. “You email him back right now and then we can talk about how the universe works.” Her face lit up — she had forgotten she’d even set the intention.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What was I going to manifest?
Since I’d started the meditation routine in January, my conscious mind was like a squirrel, flitting from one idea to the next across the metaphysical spectrum. In addition to the E² book, I had been reading Edgar Cayce, the early twentieth century mystic who believed — among other things — that every person has a direct line to the energy of the universe. No middleman required. Just sit down, get quiet, and ask. He called it the mind is the builder: what you hold in your mind, you create in your life. Thoughts are things. Intentions have weight.
I had believed something like this for years and it was the basis of this meditation experiment — I just hadn’t been doing much about it.
So that February night, drifting off to sleep, I decided to ask for something specific.
Seed money for my foundation. Ha! “My” foundation, only to be used for good.
I have always wanted to run a foundation. I mean, who wouldn’t? Social justice work, angel investing for people who need it, giving money away to organizations trying to solve the problems that feel unsolvable. It had been a fantasy for so long it had become a joke — even my resume, crafted at age twenty-seven, was headlined: Dream Job — CEO of my private foundation funded by my Superlotto winnings.
OK, universe. Let’s make this happen. Forty-eight hours from Sunday, February 7th, at 10:28pm.
I went into the meditation room. I put on my headphones, draped the blue blanket on my legs and scrolled through tracks on the app. This day I picked music only so I could focus my intention. I honestly wasn’t trying to think of the lottery. Things just pop in my head when I meditate. And then to test if a thought is coming from my conscious mind, I push it away or tie it to a helium balloon and let it float away. If it comes back, I try to be open that it might be an actual answer.
The music washed over me and I settled into my breathing (in through the nose, out through the nose). My mantra at first was “I am open to the energy of the universe” and then I shifted to a focus on this seed money idea. My mind wandered, how would it come? Inheritance? Too sad, that’s like the Monkey’s Paw, bleh. Stocks? Who am I kidding. A new job? Something else?
I tried to push that all away and stop my conscious mind from running. Just let it all float away. Then the number 13 popped in my mind followed by the letter A. Could it be 13… million? 13 million dollars. Tie it to the helium balloon… goodbye 13 million dollars. Then my old resume popped in my mind and the idea of the lottery was stuck. Was that from the universe or was it my conscious mind trying to force a path? But 13 million, that would be an incredible nest egg of capital, invested properly would generate massive returns for doing good in the world. Could I manifest that for my lifelong dream in two days’ time? I came out of the meditation, grabbed my journal and jotted it all down.
I tried to be open to whatever was meant to happen, but secretly I was sure it would be the lottery. No amount of helium balloons could float that idea away now. I’d bought plenty of lottery tickets in my time, but I was never so sure as now. Per E², the Law of Attraction does not fail! I went downstairs to work but was super distracted, googling the legalities of setting up a foundation, lottery tax calculators and, of course, the amounts of the jackpots. The numbers weren’t coming up right, though. SuperLotto wasn’t 13 million. Neither was Powerball or Mega Millions.
That didn’t deter me. I ran upstairs to get some shoes and saw the clock said 11:11, which is one of my personal signs that the angels are communicating with me. I must be right on track! I jumped in the car and drove down the street, but I wasn’t sure where to go.
I headed towards a convenience store a few blocks from my house. The first thing I saw was a sandwich board with the lottery logo and LUCKY RETAILER in big block letters. The store sign said A-1 Convenience. I looked up at it and knew. I careened into the parking lot, put on my mask, went in, and bought one each of Powerball, Mega Millions, and SuperLotto. You only need one, right? But just to be sure, I added a shiny red Valentine’s Day scratcher and went to two other gas stations and bought an additional ticket of each jackpot.
I stuck them all in the pages of my journal.
I won nine dollars.
The Mega Millions gave me five. The SuperLotto gave me four. Nine dollars of seed money for my foundation. Big whoop.
My wife looked at me across the couch, squeezed my feet and said tenderly, “I don’t want to say I told you so. Why do you let yourself get all worked up?”
“It’s like Santa Claus,” I grumbled. “If you don’t believe, you don’t get.”
I threw my journal on the ground. It landed with a thump, spilling the orange losers and a flash of red onto the rug.
“I do believe,” I went on, “in the universe and in abundance and that there is enough for everyone to go around. And that all you have to do is ask for it.”
I conceded, reluctantly: “No, not that I’m going to win the lottery necessarily. But that somehow a path will open that will take me to my dream. I guess I wanted a shortcut. And it was fun to believe.”
I reached down to pick up the spilled tickets to recycle them.
The red one wasn’t a dead ticket. It was the Valentine’s Day scratcher. I had completely forgotten about it.
I found a penny. There were ten squares. Scratch off a love symbol and you win that prize. A 2x symbol and you win double. An icon of a flying wad of cash and you win ALL the prizes, including the grand prize of twenty thousand dollars.
Adrenaline pumping, I started scratching. The penny revealed the tip of some wings —
And then my phone rang.
I didn’t recognize the number at first. When I picked up and heard his voice, my stomach did something complicated.
J.L., my former boss — the man who had fired me twelve years earlier.
I hadn’t spoken to him since. There had been a lot of feelings about that exit — and I hadn’t forgiven him. At least I didn’t think I had. But before my brain caught up with my mouth, I surprised myself and said: “It took me a long time. But I forgive you.”
I genuinely felt that the universe had sent him to me at that exact moment for a reason. And it wasn’t the lottery.
And then he told me why he called.
I had a 401K with his company. One I had mostly forgotten about. He had tracked me down because he thought I might not know it was still there.
Twelve years ago it was twenty thousand dollars.
It was now seventy-seven thousand dollars.
The universe, it turns out, is very literal.
It heard seed money for my foundation. It did not hear lottery jackpot.
I have thought about this a lot since then. About how the intention I set was never really about the lottery — I told myself it wasn’t, but honestly, I was lying. I wanted the shortcut. I wanted the dramatic gesture, the big number, the Hollywood ending!
What I actually got was a phone call I didn’t know I needed, and an old wound healed.
I went back to the scratcher to finish scratching the square.
Wings. Just wings. Not a flying wad of cash. Fine by me.
But I’m still waiting for my 13 million.
Love that this reads like a short story-- it totally pulled me in at the beginning!
What a wonderful read. I haven't heard of this book, but now want to get it - we are all made up of energy so manifestation has always made sense to me, but this seems like it's nearly magical <3