An order placed with the universe – or: How we want to live, and why hope is no substitute for action.

There are people who say that all you have to do is make your wishes clear enough to the universe. Don’t ask, don’t doubt – simply imagine that whatever you want is already there. The universe will take care of the rest.

That sounds remarkably convenient.

Listen up, universe: I need money. And yes, a little extra would be perfectly fine. I’m thinking really hard about my IBAN now. Don’t take too long.

I am, of course, quite willing to allow the universe a reasonable processing time. It is rather large, after all. It has a lot to do. Stars need to be ignited, planets kept in their orbits, and every now and then entire species need to be exploded into existence during the Cambrian. A bank transfer to central Hesse can easily get held up somewhere along the way.

Eventually, though, you get hungry.

And that changes the order.

Listen, universe. By now, I’d also appreciate a decent amount of sausage and cheese transferred directly into my fridge. And don’t forget the bread.

Positive energy is welcome too, of course. At least that might keep the fridge light running. Who knows?

The problem begins when you open the door and discover that nothingness is beautifully illuminated.

Then someone is guaranteed to come along and explain that you simply have to learn to recognise abundance.

Oh, I can see it all right.

The abundance of empty space in my fridge is overwhelming.

At that point, it seems wise to specify the terms of the order a little more precisely:

Sausage. Cheese. Bread.

Material.

Edible.

Preferably still within its use-by date.

Because this is not a spiritual problem at all. The universe simply operates like any other service provider: as long as the order has not been phrased precisely enough, it can always claim afterwards that it delivered exactly what was requested.

And while someone somewhere explains that true wealth comes from within, I stand in front of my brightly lit fridge thinking:

That may all be very well. But I still need something to put the cheese on.

You can laugh at that. I just did. And that is precisely the pleasant side of such ideas. It feels good to imagine that things can get better. It can be comforting to express a wish, give it a name and, for a moment, imagine that it has already become reality.

Hope matters. It makes people begin, carry on and try once more even after the previous attempt has failed.

It is considerably easier to concentrate on hope, however, when your stomach is not growling quite so loudly.

Things become problematic when hope turns into a claim: You just have to wish properly. You have to think positively. You have to focus your thoughts on your goal. Then the universe will provide.

And what if it doesn’t?

That reminds me of an old joke. Week after week, a man prays to win the lottery. Again and again he begs: Just once, dear God, let me win the lottery. Years pass. Nothing happens.

Eventually, a distinctly irritated voice comes down from heaven:

“Give me a chance – buy a lottery ticket!”

There is more practical wisdom in that joke than in many a guide to manifestation.

Because between a wish and its fulfilment there is usually something remarkably unspiritual:

Action.

If you want to win the lottery, you have to buy a ticket. If you want to write a book, at some point you have to start writing. If you want a different job, you have to apply for one somewhere. And if you want sausage in your fridge, your chances improve considerably if you occasionally visit a shop.

None of that guarantees anything.

That is the crucial distinction.

I can act without being able to guarantee success. I can improve my chances without controlling the world. I can hope, plan, work hard and still fail.

Self-efficacy is not omnipotence.

No lottery ticket, no lottery win. But having a lottery ticket does not mean you are going to win.

And this is precisely where the friendly idea of positive thinking reveals its unpleasant underside.

It does not always stop with the reasonable idea that my attitude can influence the way I deal with my life. Physical illnesses are sometimes assigned supposedly incorrect thoughts, with the correct thoughts conveniently supplied alongside them. Think differently, think more positively, correct your inner attitude, and supposedly you can influence your health.

That sounds wonderfully empowering.

Until you turn the idea around.

If my thoughts caused my illness, who is responsible for the fact that I am ill?

I am.

If the right attitude can make me healthy, who is responsible if I fail to recover?

Me again.

A friendly “There is something you can do for yourself” very quickly becomes “You must have done something wrong.”

That is not encouragement. It is an additional burden placed on the very person who already has one to carry.

Telling someone with an empty fridge that they need to believe more strongly in abundance does not fill the fridge. Telling someone who is ill that their illness is caused by a wrong thought does not make them well.

Afterwards, the person is still hungry or in pain – except now they have also learned that apparently they cannot even think properly.

Convenient.

The problem has not been solved, but at least we have found someone to blame.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging yourself. Someone who looks in the mirror in the morning and says, “I have worth. I can get through this day. I am allowed to make mistakes,” may draw strength from those words. The sentence does not change the universe. But it may change the person saying it.

That is already quite a lot.

What should never emerge from a way of strengthening ourselves is a theory explaining why other people suffer.

Because this pattern – turning the person who suffers into the person to blame – does not stop at an empty fridge, nor does it stop with the individual. It works wherever people find themselves in need.

We are remarkably good at looking for someone to blame, even when looking for a solution would get us considerably further.

A person has a problem.

We could ask:

What does this person need? What can we do?

Instead, we ask:

What did they do wrong?

There is a considerable advantage to this. Once you have found someone to blame, you no longer need to find a solution.

The fridge is empty? You should have managed your money better.

No job? You should have tried harder.

Ill? You should have lived more healthily or thought more positively.

In trouble? You should have made better choices.

The problem still exists, of course, but at least it belongs to somebody else now.

This mechanism works particularly well whenever helping would require something from us. Solidarity costs money, time and attention, or demands a willingness to question some of our cherished certainties.

“Your own fault” is remarkably cheap by comparison.

It is one of the cheapest solutions available.

It just does not solve anything.

What works on a small scale works just as reliably on a large one.

People leave their homes because there is war, persecution, hunger or hardship. We could discuss what can be done about the causes, how people can be helped and how that help should be organised. We could ask what role international politics, economic interests, trade relations and German arms exports play.

Instead, attention quickly shifts away from the problem and towards the people who make the problem visible.

The person running away from the problem is turned into the problem.

A person in need becomes a suspect.

They should not have come here. They should have stayed somewhere else. They only want something from us. They must be up to something.

It is wonderfully convenient. Once I have made another person responsible for their situation, or denied that they have any legitimate claim on my concern, I can simply declare their suffering to be their problem.

The problem does not disappear.

Only my responsibility for it disappears from view.

There is nothing wrong with asking about causes. Anyone who wants to solve a problem needs to understand what caused it.

But cause and blame are not the same thing.

If the roof is leaking, I should find out where the water is getting in. I do not need to identify a morally deficient roof tile.

Understanding causes helps us find solutions. Finding someone to blame is not a solution.

And behind all of this lies a much larger question:

How do we want to live together?

I grew up with a very simple ideal: if someone needs help, you help them.

You help a child cross the road. You hold a door open for someone. You help an elderly woman carry her heavy shopping. You stop when someone has fallen.

These were not acts of heroism. Nobody received a medal for them. They were small things that, taken together, expressed an idea of society.

They promised help to the helpless – and dignity to me.

If that sounds old-school today, then on this point I am happy to be old-school.

The past was no golden age of compassion. There was indifference, mockery and there were people who preferred to walk past then as well. That is not the point.

The point is the ideal behind it:

Whoever is stronger at that moment helps whoever is weaker at that moment.

Not because the other person is worth less. Not because those roles have been assigned forever.

Today I help a child cross the road. Tomorrow I am the one who needs help. The day after that, someone needs another person simply to sit beside them and listen.

A society in which needing help is not treated as a defect therefore promises help not only to other people.

It also promises me that I am allowed to be weak when I am weak.

That is not a society’s weakness.

It is its strength.

Today I open so-called social media and encounter a remarkable counter-model.

People talk about suffering – and others laugh.

Someone is attacked – and people immediately start looking for reasons why the victim must have provoked the attack.

Someone asks for help – and somebody else has already come up with a clever line explaining why they do not deserve it.

The internet did not invent cruelty.

It merely built cruelty one hell of an efficient stage.

At the old pub table, you at least had to find people willing to listen to your bad joke. Today, mockery can find an audience of thousands. Approval appears as a number. The cheap put-down gets likes. A nuanced objection takes three paragraphs; contempt fits into a single line.

And something remarkable happens:

What I would recognise as a character flaw in personal life suddenly presents itself as a political or digital position.

A very simple test is enough.

Would I want to be friends with this person?

Would I call them when I no longer knew what to do in the middle of the night? Would I tell them that I was afraid and trust them not to laugh at me or explain that it was all my own fault?

If the answer is no, an interesting question follows:

Why, of all people, should I adopt their idea of how a society ought to treat its members?

A person whom I would not trust to be my friend does not become a moral guide simply by posting an especially tough-sounding sentence on the internet.

In private life, we know perfectly well what kind of people we want around us. We look for reliability, compassion, loyalty and the certainty that our vulnerability will not be used against us.

Yet at the level of society, we allow ourselves to be told that compassion is naïve, consideration is weakness and hardness is proof of superior competence at life.

Why should a quality that makes someone a terrible friend suddenly make an excellent foundation for society?

There is an old saying that puts the same thought rather less elegantly:

If you surround yourself with assholes, you are surrounded by assholes.

It is not particularly refined social philosophy.

That does not make it wrong.

And this is where the mistake lies: we have not forgotten how to recognise a good person. In our private lives, we still know perfectly well.

We simply apply that knowledge with remarkable selectivity.

We expect a friend not to abandon us when things become difficult. We expect a minimum of consideration from our neighbours. We teach our children to help someone who has fallen and not to mock those who are weaker.

Then we enter the political or digital arena and applaud people for turning the exact opposite into a virtue.

Harshness becomes strength.

Ruthlessness becomes resolve.

Mockery becomes straight talking.

And compassion suddenly has to justify its own existence.

Since when have we considered something we would find unbearable in a friend to be a sensible attitude for a society?

I do not believe a society becomes stronger by becoming particularly efficient at deciding who is to blame for their own misfortune.

Strength is also revealed by what happens when one of us can no longer be strong.

I can hope.

I can wish.

I can try.

I can act.

And I can help another person.

The universe, meanwhile, is welcome to do its part. It has my IBAN by now. Sausage, cheese and bread have also been ordered.

If none of it has arrived by tomorrow morning, I will not conclude that this reveals some flaw in my character.

The universe did not deliver.

I do not need someone to blame.

I need a solution.

And if someone beside me is standing in front of an empty fridge, my first question need not be:

“What did you do wrong?”

But:

“What do we need?”

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