We unanimously decided that classic, New York Chinese food was the proper last lunch for my trip back East slash reunion with the Mississippi’s. Jenny, Zac, Meg and I were joined by R and Clelia (my college friend, his childhood friend, and the person who suggested we meet). It was just the meal we bargained for, despite it being 10,000 degrees in the second floor dining room of Ollie’s Upper West Side location. L.A. does many things right, but cold sesame noodles in not one of them.

When the time came for our fortune cookie dessert the crew decided final-fortune-cookies-of-the- decade fanfare was in order. What better way to predict the ten years ahead than with a randomly assigned prophecy, lesson in Chinese vocab and 7 is it? lucky numbers.

Mine – like everyone else’s – was not a fortune. It’s like somewhere along the the way the Chinese restaurants union got sued for wrongful identification of future events and in a CYA move, replaced all the actual fortunes (you will meet a tall, dark stranger) with cliched sayings that either don’t make sense of sound vaguely familiar (all we are suggesting is give peace a try). Or, in my case, fear and desire…two different sides of the same coin.It didn’t serve as any form of prediction of what’s to come in my decade ahead, which is disappointing since if all goes according to the way things usually go for college-educated American females I’ll get married, buy my first piece of property, have my first child (if not more), and (god-willing) find success in the career of my choosing (once I finally, definitively choose). I’ll be 37-years-old ten years from now. When my Mom was 37 she had four children, had been married for 12 years, and was prepping to move into the new home we’d built. My fortune didn’t mention anything about that.

But in a way it did sum up the feelings wrapped up in some if not all of the major changes I’ve been through in the past year, if not entire decade. Fear – that often inexplicable emotion we experience relative to so many things – fear of failure, fear of change, fear of being loved, fear of not being loved. The black cloud version of the devil on our shoulders pushing us to believe we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do whatever it is we want to do.

But how co-dependent are the two really? Can you have desire without fear? Of course. People speak of absolutely knowing that something is right all the time – whether it’s a love-at-first sight scenario or a major career change. You can want something that you are not afraid to go get.

But I’m not sure you can overcome the fear of what that wanting may result in without a strong enough desire. I’ve written about this before – that Anais Nin-quote about the desire to blossom overcoming the flower’s fear to bloom. In the question of who wins – the fear on your right shoulder or the desire on your left – I think it’s always a matter of what’s stronger.

The problem in my case has always been that fear is often rooted in logic and desire is likely rooted in feeling. So when I hemmed and hawed about moving to L.A. for two plus years there were legitimate and very real fears that stopped me from taking the plunge. Financial fears, fears about being so far from home, fear of falling off the progress ladder and not being able to get back on. “What have you got to lose?” people would say. The answer was actually, a lot of things.

But when those same people asked me, “so why do you want to go,” the answers almost always included the word feel. “I feel like if I don’t go now I’ll miss the opportunity forever” or “I feel like this is what I was meant to do in this world” or “I feel like I’ve never wanted to try something more.” Fears are feelings too, but they’re attached to real causes and effects. Desires, not so much. You just…know.

I wish there was a fortune telling device – cookie-based or otherwise – to predict which desires are worth ignoring the fears. I didn’t flip a coin and decide to move to L.A. I allowed all my desires to outweigh all my fear and convinced myself that going was right.

So far, it has been right. But that’s besides the point. I am one example, and mine is one story.

Should you always let desire win? And if not then how much desire should there be before you say, okay, let’s go?

I don’t think it’s an issue for Ollie’s Chinese to tackle, which is fine because as long as they’re willing to continue owning the sesame chicken solution, I’m fine continuing to wrestle through the fear slash desire debacle.

Happy, Happy New Year everyone. May yours be filled with a manageable balance of the two sides of the coin.