Don't wish for something, you might just get it

[Andy008]

Can someone explain

[woofgang]

It means that something that looks good when you wish for it might not turn out to be so. For instance, I wish I had my bosses job and when you get it you find its worse than yours. There are also fairy stories about people who are given 3 wishes and find out that they don't really want what they have wished for.

[gary baldy]

Sorry to be a pedant but the actually saying "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it".
i think a good example is saying something 'like i wish he was dead' and then they go and drop down dead.
I think the implication is that wishing for too many things will make you lose sight of what you actually can realistically achieve and what is actually with in your power to affect.

[spudqueen]

A couple of years ago a friend of mine was feeling really stagnant and wanted to do something new and different then she became quite ill with IBS and now is just pathetically grateful when she's well and says 'be careful what you wish for......'

[Postdog]

I'm inclined to go with the first suggestion. There is a famous story that's been around since the early 1900's called "The monkey's paw" where a magical monkey's paw had the power to grant wishes. The parents of a boy jokingly wish for money. They get it, but it's compensation for the death of their son in an accident at work. The son was alive when they made the wish, and ended up caught in machinery..

With the second wish, they just wished he was alive again, only they didn't wish he was how he was before all this, and he turned up at their door a mangled bloody mess. They had to use their last wish to end it.

Not an original idea, but probably the best known example.