#6 Give up your Magic?

Throughout my journey of life, I have been told that anywhere I want to get to will involve a fair amount of “biting the bullet.” Time and time again I have had someone explain to me that life involves sacrifice and that it isn’t all fun and games. Ultimately, there will be chapters in life that will not be fun ones. They will be sacrifices, and although they will one day have a massive payoff, they will feel like tougher seasons nonetheless. I have struggled with this piece of advice because of a story that happened to me. I have shared it on this blog once or twice already, and a few more times in real life. So if you have heard it before, stick around as I tell it again. 

So when I was in my teens, I was quite the musician. I started by learning to play the drums and loved it. But eventually, I felt the growth begin to slow down, and I felt like I had hit a wall in my drumming progress. So I decided to make a shift and learn guitar. I sought out a teacher, got myself a snazzy electric guitar, and we were off to the races! Trouble is, it was tough. Really tough. I shot myself in the foot a bit by seeking out tough songs to learn, but the overall experience was still simply…

Tough

I tried and tried and tried to really get the hang of it. For four years I tried! I kept telling myself what others had told me: stick with it and eventually it will all pay off. Well, it never did, and eventually I hung it up for other pursuits (like this one. Perhaps a blessing in disguise?) My point in telling this story is this: the spark never came. I kept telling myself that the magic would one day click, and I would enjoy guitar as much as drums. But I never got there. And ever since that chapter was written, I have asked myself: what does suffering for a payoff really look like?

I often wonder if I had simply done things differently if playing guitar would have worked out. I wonder if it was simply the wrong ingredients that made the recipe so bad. Maybe I had bad expectations, having played a previous instrument. Maybe I made the mistake of picking hard songs, or simply songs I didn’t really love. I think about these things and more as I toy with the situation I put myself through. 

I often wonder if certain situations are simply not what we expected. I said I wanted to be in IT, until I realized how much information I would have to keep up with, and the type of people I would have to tolerate. As a kid, I said I wanted to write music, until I realized how much work it involved, and how little of it I cared to do. All these are dreams I have dreamed, only to realize that they were not what they seemed. Where does one go from there?

I don’t know. Honestly, it’s a tricky thing. When do you know your spark isn’t coming? How do you know that you have worked hard enough at it? How can you know that in advance? Especially if you don’t know the world from the inside yet? Is that something we can even know? Eventually life has to be more than cookies and hot cocoa, right?

I think the trick that has gotten me through many a difficult trial is to fear my own frailty. Despite coming off with a “tough guy” persona, I often assume that I am quite weak. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I walk around as if my bones were made of glass, but I do believe that everything of mine can be taken from me if I’m not careful to protect it. I can’t “just hack it” through life. Only through wisdom and insight can I truly stay afloat in this world.

And that’s what I think it’s all about: making the right choices. Assuming that your magic touch can, under the right circumstances, be stolen. Even if my passion erupts into a flame that roars through the cold night, I always remind myself that I could lose it. So I must always protect it. Or maybe I’m wrong, and I’ll actually be fine either way. If that were true, it would probably be the first time, since most times my obsessiveness leads to crashing and burning. 

Then again, this writing project has been one of those things I have over-committed to. And (knock on wood,) I’m still going pretty strong after eight months. But, then again, I have had to put in some work to keep this fresh. So who knows who’s right with that one? 

Maybe that’s the solution: daunting commitments that deepen your wisdom to complete. Maybe we are, in fact, supposed to put ourselves through some tougher stuff to “pay our dues.” And maybe those times in our lives bring out the best in us, define us, and develop us into the types of people we ought to become. Sure, nobody wants to commit to tough times, but maybe just like Lewis learning to use magic himself, the thing that we are inspired to have is just on the other side of a lot of dull reading. Maybe that’s part of what makes the magic so sweet. 

But I think the process isn’t just a slog. If you are truly excited about something, every step that you take will be a thrilling victory because you know you’re on the right path. I was thinking about this today. My job has me helping out the HVAC department, due to an overflow of plumbers on our jobsite. At this point, I have successfully helped with a thing or two. We have cut pieces out of the ceiling, prepared materials for use, and even hung more than a few pieces of air duct. Yet, as I was leaving today, I saw all the piping that had been put up, and that got me more excited than any of what I had done previously. Something about it mesmerized me, and I thought to myself “yeah, I’m still hyped to be a plumber.” 

Sometimes, I think we just know that we are supposed to be somewhere else. We have to constantly stay in touch with that spark so that it can nurture itself into a ferocious flame, capable of withstanding even the greatest of colds. It can still be extinguished, but it will take a little more effort than you might think. So I pray that you find your magic, that a deep flame that guides you through life’s adversities. I pray you have the wisdom to nurture it and keep it whole. I pray your life be filled with purpose, and that everything starts to make sense in your life.

Until next time

May Peace be your Guide.