Wish on that star. For science!

 I don't know why we wish on stars. I haven't looked it up, and I don't care to. I've lost belief in a lot thanks to science, but the Universe only seems more and more wondrous. The more sciency I get, the more I appreciate wishing on stars. It's the only thing that makes sense.

Spells are fine and dandy, but...

 A lot of "magic spells" from ages past, in their own naive way, have a certain amount of logic. Ever notice how many odd-sounding ingredients are in spells? Sometimes a chant, a dance, even a sacrifice. There never had to be anything magical about any of the ingredients or actions. They were specific. They used a lot of energy. The specific and mystical nature ensured that while gathering ingredients and performing rituals, a great deal of energy was being spent on a definite outcome. There's no reason, with matter and energy being interchangeable, that this somehow couldn't have affected the nature of reality, so that certain electrons arranged in just the right way to make the spell work. It doesn't work that way, though.

 If you're going to put effort into making something happen, just go ahead and make it happen, already. Wishing on a star is looking to endless possibilities that exist in the Universe.

There so much out there that has already happened. Maybe you got your wish.

 The closest star in the night sky 4 and a quarter light years from us. When we look at Proxima Centauri, We are looking a little over 4 years into the past. A lot can happen in that time.

 4 light years between stars. Hundreds of millions of stars just in our own galaxy. A few stars in our night sky are actually distant galaxies, equally as huge or more so, so distant their light can be dwarfed by a single star, or even a nearby planet. What an amazing distance we look back when we look into the sky. We're looking at all of time so far when we look into the sky. Not all of the light makes it to us, but it's there. All of time. Time in which anything could have happened. Even your wish.

  Look up. Don't go with the "first" star, that's usually a planet. So much less time that you're looking at. Look over the sky. Wish on the star that twinkles as your gaze goes over it. Not out of magic or expectation, out of respect.

  And because the Universe just winked at you.