The genie in my pocket
How our phones keep us from becoming someone worth becoming
The thing about Aladdin’s Genie is that he came with boundaries. Three wishes. No exceptions. Couldn't kill anybody, couldn’t make someone fall in love, couldn't bring people back from the dead.
There was something strangely comforting about that. The idea that even magic has boundaries. That some things were too sacred, too real, to be conjured on demand.
But the Genie in our pockets — the one glowing in our palms, chirping at us from our bedsides, doesn’t come with boundaries.
No limit on wishes. No line between what we need and what we just… kind of want.
Hungry? Swipe.
Lonely? Ping.
Anxious? Scroll till your eyes blur.
Sad? Escape into a reel where someone’s Sunday morning looks impossibly beautiful and curated and soothing and nothing like your own.
It’s efficient and dangerous.
Because while it’s granting our micro-desires in seconds, our phone is quietly dismantling our tolerance for patience. It’s costing us our capacity to wait, to build, to fail repeatedly and still keep going.
And the real stuff always takes time.
Falling in love.
Learning an art.
Building a business.
Finding a home that feels right for you.
Recovering from heartbreak.
Becoming someone you respect.
None of this comes with same-day delivery.
That absurd gap between our swipe-and-it’s-yours world and our slow-cooked dreams is jarring.
We’re used to instant gratification, so when something doesn’t arrive instantly — when love doesn’t appear, or the job offer doesn’t land, or the scale doesn’t move — we assume something’s broken. We’re rattled by the discomfort of failing waiting.
So we reach for the Genie again. We scroll, swipe, soothe. We trade silence for stimulation.
And slowly, stealthily, our days begin to hollow.
Which begs the question:
If our lives were built only on what took time, what required patience — what would remain?
That’s the cost.
The real cost of a magic with no rules isn’t that it gives you what you want. It keeps you from becoming someone who can wait for what matters.
So maybe it’s not the Genie’s job to say no.
It’s ours – the masters.
We need to say:
“I’ll use you for directions and language apps and ordering shampoo. But not for numbing my ambition. Not for escaping the parts of my life that are still in progress.”
Because anything that’s worth becoming — a musician, a lover, a parent, a friend, a person of depth — takes longer than a scroll.
And you can’t wish your way there.
Tweaking superstar’s words (IYKYK)
கையில் கொஞ்சம் காசு screens இருந்தால்
நீதான் அதற்கு எஜமானன்
கழுத்து வரைக்கும் காசு screens இருந்தால்
அதுதான் உனக்கு எஜமானன்
Happy slow bloom ⏳🌸
Akhila