370 I Find Magic Wherever I Go | January 2018 Friday Week 1

Fantastic Fridays-#361  January 5th The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast I Find Magic Wherever I Go   “I am a great admirer of mystery and magic. Look at this life - all mystery and magic.” ~Harry Houdini I loved magic when I was a kid. I thought it was amazing how someone would have secret knowledge of the exact card that was picked from a deck without you having to tell them what you picked. It fascinated me so much that I kept a deck of cards with me wherever I went for a brief time in my younger life.   I remember being at the airport during a layover and a gentleman sat next to me, and I was like oh man this guy is in for a treat I’m going to wow him. And so without even saying hello, like an eager young innocent child…which I was, I flayed out a deck of cards with my hands and said “pick a card, any card…I bet I can guess your card.”   Now either he was amused by my candor or he didn’t know what to do so just complied so I would stop bugging him as soon as possible. I was so sure I would get it right and that I would amaze him and make his day by proving I was a magician of great worth. And so, he picked a card and I asked him to put it back in the deck. I pulled out the card he picked waiting to see his amazement, as I said is this your card? His face turned red and I was amazed because this was a new expression I had never seen before. Usually people are wowed with their eyebrows raised high and mouths opened as they can’t believe the feat of magic I just displayed in front of their eyes.   He was quiet for a few more seconds, which felt like an eternity for me, and I knew I had made this man a believer in magic. He had seen true magic!   Finally my newest magic participant spoke, and he said, I’m sorry, no, that wasn’t my card.” I thought there must be a mistake…and so I searched the deck frantically for his card again to save face. But with each card I pulled out, it got more embarrassing for me. But the funny thing about kids is, that I was so happy in doing magic and connecting with people, that I didn’t feel bad for too long.   I said, “ok let me try again.” And so I tried that trick a few more times on him and I think I eventually got it right…but for me even though I was slightly embarrassed at first…it wasn’t about getting it perfect…it was about getting it right no matter how many times I had to do it. I was going to figure out his card one way or another…even if he had to pick a card 10 times for me. Now I may have been bugging the gentleman while he was waiting to board his flight, but I think he saw the beauty in a child wanting to do something right, and him being a part in helping that child succeed. And also, I’m sure he got a good laugh out of it as he probably told his friends about this crazy kid he met at the airport who wouldn’t leave him alone.   The reasons my tricks didn’t always go perfectly, besides the fact that I needed more practice, was because I didn’t understand the theories behind the trick. And so I tried to just use my attention to detail, noticing the slight differences in the deck to guess or feel with my hand and hopefully pull out their card. So sometimes it was me guessing a little bit knowing it was somewhere in that section of a certain portion of the deck.   I wanted to learn how to become a better magician, so I checked out books at the library on magic, and my parents bought me a few books on the subject too. I learned some tricks through math and card placement, and I learned other methods on making your efforts in magic be more successful. But I think the more that I got to know the secrets behind the tricks, then the more disinterested I became in the practice of it.   Magic is a craft, and I might have seen how hard it would be to get really good at it. I saw that magicians put in hours of practice a day for sometimes years to master just one trick. So maybe I got bored in the tedious practice of it, hoping I could master it in a month. I had grand illusions of being the greatest neighborhood magician Kenton Court had ever seen. And like David Copperfield, I would wow them by putting a sheet over their dog, and make it disappear right before their eyes just like David made the Statue of Liberty disappear on television.   It sounds cliché, but when I knew what was behind the magic trick it no longer held its bewilderment to me. The fun in magic isn’t in trying to find out how the trick is done. The magic is found in being amazed by something not fully understanding how it’s done. As we’ve become adults, we want to pull the curtain back from the wizard to not be fooled anymore. We want to know the ins and out of religion, science, or why the world works the way it does…and those are all great things…but in our efforts in trying to explain a reason for everything, to see the process and order for everything…to know the whys that sometimes cannot be known why…then we begin to stop seeing magic in our ordinary lives.   We aren’t impressed with evaporation as a puddle of water is pulled back into the atmosphere to be redistributed as rain. We aren’t fascinated by how we can throw a ball into the air and it always return back to us. And we don’t even bat an eyelash at how every year plants die in the winter and come back every spring.   We’ve seen the day in day outs processes of the world and they’ve become ordinary to us. And it’s not just because we know how it happens, we’ve gotten used to amazing things being in our field of view in every moment…that we now see them only as ordinary. Because for things that happen all the time, they no longer become miracles, we begin to label them as regular moments.   I get into this argument all the time with people, as I’ll say “every single person is amazing and so talented.” And they’ll rebuke back, “well if everyone is amazing then no one is amazing. Not everyone can be amazing, sometimes people are just ordinary.” But I disagree with that statement; everyone has something beautiful about them, everyone has something unique about them, and just because their uniqueness isn’t always meant for a worldly or grand scale…doesn’t mean that they aren’t amazing people.   And I think those naysayers are stuck focusing more on what people are doing with their lives, instead of seeing the magic of possibility we all have at our disposal. The possibility and chance in every moment to share our best selves with the world…whether on smaller scale or a bigger scale.   And maybe you are, or have been, one of those naysayers. I know I’ve been. But I would like to awaken you to a better perspective, I want you to put yourself in different shoes to be that person who finds the magic in the ordinary. To be the person who would see a puddle one moment, and an hour later see that the puddle is gone, and be wowed again by the magic of evaporation in the world. I want you to be that person who is wowed by the effects of gravity as you see a sunrise or sunset every day and know it’s from gravity keeping us circling the sun. I want you to be that person wowed at the changes of seasons…instead of complaining it’s too hot or too cold. I want you to be a person who see magic in the moments of your life again and finds the beauty in all of it.   There’s magic all around us, and all we have to do is open our eyes. All we have to do is understand that the ordinary really isn’t ordinary…we’ve just seen it so many times it feels normal. But normal, doesn’t mean that it’s not magic. So when we choose to see the magic in the moment, in the ordinary, in the normal, in what is in front of us at any moment…we make our lives magical too. We become part of the magic.   Today’s Personal Commitment:What magic have you forgotten, and no longer notice in your life? Go about your day taking notice of things you might have just passed by previously and see the magic in them again. And at the end of your day, write down a list of all the magic you experienced that day. I can guarantee it will change not only the trajectory of your day…but also the direction of your life. See if you can do this exercise for a day, a week, or even a month and then write your thoughts on how it changed you. I Find Magic Wherever I Go   Thanks for listening.  I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together, Personal Development Life Coach- Chris O'Hearn Contact info- email: [email protected]  phone:865-219-3247     Music by: - Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. - I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide