What It Means to Practice the Habit of Casual Magic
How appreciating mundane moments may lead to enduring happiness.
The underlying meaning of casual magic is to become a curious observer and to find something to be grateful for in daily situations.
It could be as simple as walking in nature and listening carefully to the leaves and branches moving in the wind or appreciating quality time with a close friend.
Supposedly, by doing so, one manages to find the beauty in the mundane, appreciate the little things and develop gratitude leading to higher degrees of contentment.
In the paper “Happiness from Ordinary and Extraordinary Experiences”, Bhattacharjee and Mogilner (2013) investigate which life experiences are believed to bring us the highest degree of happiness and fulfilment and the impact of age in determining what the primary sources of joy are.
The paper refers to a series of scholars who suggest that the appreciation of mundane moments may lead to higher and more enduring happiness than the thrill that great and once-in-a-lifetime experiences may bring.
Although the literature is characterised by a heated debate and strikingly opposing views, Bryant (2003), Quoidbach, Berry et al. (2010) and more believe happiness often comes from appreciating the little things and what we see, observe and experience in our daily routines indeed.
I had heard of the concept of casual magic for the first time in one of Jade Bowler’s YouTube videos (aka UnJaded Jade on social media). Her videos are mainly focused on productivity, but she is also passionate about sharing her learnings as a student abroad and exploring topics such as toxic productivity, hustle culture and meditation. Below, you can find a video of her that explicitly depicts what it is meant by casual magic.
Therefore, I decided to experiment with it and spot magical moments (either positive, funny or unusual ones) every day or so with a friend of mine. This allowed us to become more observant and inject some positivity and mindfulness throughout the day. Not only, the act of sharing casual magic moments with a friend (based in a different country than mine) has also kept our long-distance friendship and connection alive.
From my part, magical moments included spending some precious time in a nearby forest observing squirrels climbing on trees and savouring homemade healthy dishes.
If, on the one hand, spotting magical moments and showing appreciation for what we experience in mundane situations may correlate to increased happiness, excessive gratitude can backfire.
As Jade Bowler mentions in the video linked above, we still need to be aware of the fact that there are many negative aspects of the world we live in (a myriad of social issues and environmental degradation), thus it is important to accept feelings of anger and frustration which are those that can bring about change in a small or, even, large scale.
Notwithstanding gratitude and appreciating what we experience in life does lead to happiness in the long term, a realistic mindset is still necessary, if we wish to make changes in our individual lives or at a societal level.
One could argue gratitude and the casual magic concept shouldn’t therefore be used as a tool to mask what we don’t like about our life or society by constantly appreciating what we have, but rather as something that can help us remove some unnecessary complaints. At the same time, it should allow us to listen to and scrutinise any negative feeling — which may be a sign it is time to propel change and growth.
