Getting what we want

Is there any difference between "getting what one wants" and "wanting what one gets"?

They appear different: wanting what one gets is interpreted as fortunate, while getting what one wants is considered successful. The only difference in interpretation then is due to ego.

But it is recognised that success is part fortune and part hard work - so it is not an indivisable concept. And it is recognised (less clearly) that fortune is part hard work - you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket.

In reality then a "successful" situation is a combination of things which can be termed "deserved" through hard work, and those which are just luck. However if you examine the idea of Karma you see that actually everything is due to hard work - even what we get and what we desire.

So through sustained effort we can bring about both the things we want, and the wanting of the things we get; they are the same thing. And the process of bring this about is called "being good".

The problem for the Ego is that it only sees things as a product of itself. Luck it can't understand because it doesn't seem to come from itself, and hard work is a strain and fraught with difficulties. Seeing the bigger picture, where even our Ego is a thing we obtain through luck (how can our Ego make itself?), we see that the forces that bring things about are both within and without, both in "our" control and outside "our" control, and the question of whether what we get is what we want and vice-versa is really a matter of perspective and something determined on a scale much greater than a view including only "ourselves".

"Quotation" marks everywhere because all these terms don't really mean anything they are habitual linguistic phrases that are handed down but on examination just dissappear when the lights are turned on them.