counting the blessings i never earned
my office this week #3
You can literally script any life that you desire, and the Universe will deliver to you the people, places, and events just as you decide them to be.”
I’m reading an Abraham Hicks book to get the instructions on a specific manifestation practice called “scripting.”
I’ve learned the technique before from other teachers. I’ve practiced it on and off for years. But this time, I wanted to go directly to the source. To the book Ask and It Is Given, where they give detailed instructions on all their manifestation processes.
They said:
“Pretend that you are a writer and that whatever you write will be performed exactly as you write it. Your only job is to describe, in detail, everything exactly as you want it to be.”
Keep it light and playful, they instructed.
Pretend you have a magical typewriter, or a magical notebook. You can craft any plot line, any scene that you want, just by writing it down.
Oooh, that’s fun.
I love the “magical notebook” angle. It feels less serious personal growth work and more creative writing. World-building. Make-believe.
But the further along I read in the instructions, I notice a resistance rising in my body. A fear. A hesitation.
I can’t open my journal.
A voice in the back of my mind was saying, Be careful.
Be careful of what? What does that mean?
The realization washes over me.
I’m worried that if I write out my “dream life,” it will actually come true—and I’m not sure I deserve it yet.
I’ve personally experienced the power of manifestation. I write in detail about my journey with manifestation in this post, if you are interested.
The short version: Everything I’m living right now was once a sentence in a journal.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
This is an actual sentence from my journal in 2019
At that time, I was working as an English teacher at a school in South Korea to pay the bills. I spent my evenings and weekends doing my coaching certification and learning everything about building an online business.
I didn’t have remote income.
I didn’t have a single client.
I had traveled to maybe 6 countries.
Now, that sentence describes my life.
For the past four years I’ve run my six-figure coaching business from cafés around the world.
I believe in the power of manifestation.
I believe I really do have a magical notebook.
That’s why I’m hesitating. right now.
That’s why I can’t open my notebook.
I get it, but I also don’t get it.
Is my hesitation:
I don’t think I deserve it period. Like, I’m not the kind of person who deserve a dream life?
Or is it because I don’t think I’ve worked hard enough yet? I need to put in more effort to earn my next level?
Is it that my life is already good enough, and I should save some goodness for other people?
The resistance itself feels slippery.
It won’t reveal itself to me in the form of a belief or a memory.
I can’t fully grasp it, unpack it, or release it.
So I decide to work around it by changing the rules of the game.
At the top of my page I write:
“If people didn’t have to be deserving to earn a magical life, what would I want?”
It works. Words flow from my pen onto the paper. Pages and pages of dreams and visions for the future.
I close my journal feeling satisfied and excited.
But I couldn’t fully shake that underlying resistance.
A few days later, I was sitting on a bus en route to a weekend getaway. Looking out the window. Sunglasses on. David Ghiyam’s podcast playing in my headphones.
He asked:
“Do you want a fair life or a merciful life?”
Hmm. What’s the difference?
A fair life would mean that everyone earns exactly what they have—and nothing more.
But when you look at all the blessings in your life right now… do you really think it’s fair? Do you really think you’ve earned every single one of them?
Ohhh. Interesting.
I paused the podcast. I needed to contemplate this.
Right now I’m sitting next to a friend I love, on a beautiful Saturday, on my way to explore a brand-new city for the weekend
I have a calendar full of client calls with people I absolutely adore.
Family that loves me and supports me.
A phone full of WhatsApp messages with friends.
A community of 1,500 people on Substack, 7,000 on LinkedIn, and 6,000 on Instagram.
A trip to Borneo next month.
A European summer on the horizon.
Did I earn any of this?
Maybe I did.
But maybe I didn’t.
How can I be sure?
How can I know if every single blessing I have is something that I specifically earned?
Is there a point system I could look at?
A scorecard I can reference?
Some kind of universal code of merit that could tell me
X action = Y blessing.
It’s absurd, right? How would that even work?
It seems like the only sane conclusion is… I can’t actually know which blessings I’ve earned and which ones I haven’t.
It’s possible I don’t deserve any of the blessings in my life right now—and yet, here they are anyway.
Maybe there is no merit system in the sky.
Maybe we don’t live in a fair universe.
Maybe we live in a merciful universe.
Maybe we don’t have to earn it or deserve it.
We just get to allow it.
I’m reminded of an Abraham Hicks quote:
“You cannot be more blessed than you already are, but you can let more of your blessings in.”
I’ve listened to Abraham Hicks teachings for years. I’ve probably heard hundreds of hours of their content on YouTube.
But this one quote, which I heard at their live event, has remained seared in my memory since May of 2023.
What would it look like to let more of my blessings in?
To stop keeping score.
To let go of the rulebook around “earning” and “deserving” and tit-for-tat.
And is that even possible?
Can I just let go of the rules I’ve internalized about how good my life is allowed to be?
Then a Hafiz poem popped into my mind:
The wind and I could come by and carry
you the last part of your journey,
if you become light enough,
by just letting go of a few more things
you are clinging to…that still
believe in gravity.
I turned on some instrumental film scores, closed my eyes, and made a request:
Help me let go of everything that still believes in gravity.
Everything that is heavy.
Everything that is holding me down.
Everything that is keeping me from taking flight.
I’m ready to let it go.
I’m willing to let it go.
For the rest of the drive to Ipoh,
I repeated my prayer of surrender:
let go
let go
let go
as silent tears streamed down my face.
Every Sunday, I invite you into “my office this week” and share a weekly reflection from wherever i’m working in the world. Subscribe to come along for the adventure.