Consider how many of your desires literally come true. Your desires are fulfilled right and left. You may have focused on desires that haven’t as yet come true, so you carry around an unfulfilled feeling within you, as if you were missing out, as if you had been short-changed. Refocus your attention on what you have received. Desires, big and little, are meant to be fulfilled. If you must count, count the desires that have already landed in your lap. They are spilling all over, and some you have yet to bend down and pick up.

Sometimes you fulfill your own desires. You want eggs for breakfast, and you make them. Sometimes desires come as if on their own with the speed of light. You think of a dear friend, and, before you know it, your friend calls. When desires are fulfilled, they are filled spontaneously. Desires are not filled by dint of hard work. In fact, hard work does not bring them. Joy of work more likely brings them.

And, true, some desires take their own sweet time. That is also wonderful news because it means that there are more desires on their way to you. Unfulfilled desires just haven’t reached you yet. Get ready. They are coming.

Perhaps you have desired to win the lottery. Your heart sinks when you think that everyone cannot win. Yet you can wrest joy from the others who have won. They have gladly shared their happiness with you. You have seen their pictures in the papers. You have seen their big smiles. You have felt their joy.

You may have thought that it is money lottery-winners win, but it is the joy of the moment they win. The money is just a medium for the joy. And you can win joy at any moment you choose. Joy has a life of its own, independent of the menial gifts supplied by the universe. Luminary gifts from the universe are streaming to you every moment of your waking and sleeping life.

Perhaps you say you have desired world peace since you were a little child, and you ask, “Where is it?” You ask, “Is it ever going to come?” Beloveds, count peace instead of war. There is an overwhelming count of peace. Count smiles today instead of frowns, and how happy you will be. Count incidents of joy today, why not?

Just as flowers shed their petals, so can you shed joy. You can strew your own path with joy. As you do, everyone else will walk on those same petals. You are strewing something on your path, so it might as well be joy. Is there something else you would rather strew?

You know those pictures that have hidden objects? Life is like that picture. What is obvious is obvious. Look for what may not be obvious. What have you not yet seen?

Let joy be your trump card in life. There is no better one.

What will you play today? Play joy, beloveds. At school, play joy. At work, play joy. At play, play joy. You have had enough playing grumpy, playing hurt, playing selfish, playing smart, playing greed, playing games. Joy is a desire, and you are a fulfiller of it. Count joy instead of money today, beloveds. Joy reaches Me. Money does not. First and foremost, be wealthy in joy. Be wealthy in wealth, and be wealthy in joy. You can have both. Start now with joy.