A few days ago, while I was on my way to go get some groceries, I had walked past two guys and had overheard one of them say something that refused to leave my head throughout my entire journey to the grocery store.
Over here, the indigenous people here have this rule where no shop is allowed to be opened for a couple of hours whenever they have a burial ceremony. And back then, the shops weren't allowed to be opened till about 12pm, and if anyone went against this rule, their shops would be attacked by the youths of the community, their goods seized, until the owner of the shop paid a fine to get it released.
Well, they had a burial on that day, and it turned out that the time had been changed from 12pm to 2pm. What that meant was that no shops were allowed to be open for almost half that day, and knowing that, most shop owners just refused to open their shops at all that day; they just used it as a day to rest.
Well, it turned out that this young man happens to work for one of those people who refuses to open their shops at all on days like that. And I remember as I walked past him, he had said how he wished that there was a burial ceremony every day. He had made that statement not only because of the free day he gets at work but also because of the free food and drinks he gets from the ceremony.
Hearing that, I had said to myself that if only this person knew how dangerous the person he just wished for was. But the crazy thing is that he probably had made that wish with a clean heart, not because he wished massive deaths in the community, but because he simply wanted some free food and some rest.
But then he hadn't realized that in order to get his wish, he had also indirectly wished for there to be deaths every week. It's the same thing that happens to some of us when we pray for rain so that we can have a nice, sound sleep while ignoring the fact that there are homeless people out there who are constantly praying that it doesn't rain, because whenever it does, they get soaked by the rain and sometimes end up getting cold.
The bottom line is that sometimes, if we take a little extra minute to think about how that innocent wish could indirectly affect other people, we will end up never making that wish in the first place.
