There Is Magic In Doing What You Love
Everyone has their own kind of magic. It could be anything from the way they talk to what their eyes are like to how well they give advice. One of the best kinds of magic, though, is the magic we create.
There is magic in doing what you love.
Finding your magic
Not everyone knows what they love doing from the start. We don’t come out of the womb knowing what it is we want to do for the rest of our lives; we find it out as we go through life, slowly and not always surely, but getting there nonetheless.
If you haven’t found it yet, list down all your answers to this question: what makes me happy when I do it? One of them must jump out at you significantly enough to be taken as your main answer.
This magic can come in so many different forms. It could be anywhere from painting to doing volunteer work to debating; whatever it is, much like how I imagine having actual magic must be, it comes naturally — almost as if you know you’re supposed to be doing it.
These are just hobbies, though. Where does the magic come in?
Now that you’ve found it, it’s time to create.
You create best when you’re passionate about it
I used to have the wrong notion that creating only comes from what we traditionally call the arts: painting, writing, music, and the like. The thing I’ve learned recently is that anything can be an art. Doing literally anything creates something, and this is what we have to channel when harnessing our magic.
Not all work is good at the start, though, and that’s okay. Personally, I’ve been discouraged from writing multiple times. I used to think I was meant to write fiction, and I did try my hand at that for a while until I got frustrated that I couldn’t see my ideas through, so I quit. Yet here I am, trying again.
Creating at your best does not necessarily mean everything you create is perfect from the get-go. Sometimes it means persevering despite it not being perfect and taking the time to master your craft because you want it hard enough.
That’s when the real magic happens — when something is created out of nothing because you willed it into existence.
To an extent, the magic comes naturally, but that doesn’t mean it will always be easy. What does come easy, then, is wanting and deciding to do it. This is where passion comes in, and passion is important in willing what you want to create into existence because without it you’d stop trying to create every time you fail — and failing is inevitable.
When it feels like the magic has run out
There are times when I’ve felt like my magic’s been depleted. However, another thing I’ve learned is that the best thing about magic is you have it forever; you just can’t always access it.
When I feel like there’s something blocking me from creating, I try to figure out what exactly that is and why it’s holding me back. This is because trying to ignore those blocks without acknowledging them first won’t bring us any closer to accepting and moving past them.
I’ve found it’s effective to give yourself a break sometimes. Your magic will always be there, but overusing it will strain it and keep you from creating at your best. When you’re ready to come back and the block is still there, ask yourself if something is wrong; chances are your body and mind will unconsciously know the answer and you just have to bring it out. Are there unresolved feelings you’d attached to your magic that you haven’t addressed?
To give an example, I’d taken a long break from writing before coming to write on Medium. When I decided it was time to write again, I felt a block that kept me from doing so immediately. That’s when I came back to before I stopped writing and asked myself what happened that made me stop, and I realised that a big factor was my insecurity about what I wrote. I stopped writing because I always felt like there were gonna be better writers with better stories than mine, and while that’s still true now (of course), I’ve learned to accept that it’s just a fact and shouldn’t affect me going after my passion.
Examining these feelings can go a long way in helping us get rid of that creative block, but no matter what it is I’ve learned that it’s fixable.
Creating something out of nothing is its own kind of magic, and everyone has magic in them; it’s just a matter of knowing how to unlock it.
