Doo-Doo Makes the Woo-Woo

February 25, 2022

I believe in magic. I always have. It's why I devoured Tolkien as a child and how I know there's always something just beyond my reach. It's the sparkle in the corner of my vision or the breath on my neck. It's the whisper in the middle of the night and that spark of inspiration in the shower. When I started acknowledging it, it showed up more. It wants to be known.

Call it whatever you like. God. The universe. Imagination. It's all the things and it's none of the things and the only thing that matters is that it's mine.

And it can be yours too. 

You just have to say yes.

A funny thing happens when you open yourself up to opportunity. Opportunity shows up. It doesn't always look like you thought it would, but it always does more than you expected.

My twenty-year-old wandered into my office while he was home on reading week and confessed that he was feeling sad and purposeless. I talked with him about goals and passions and deadlines and how we all have to do things we don't like and how our happiness depends on finding something we do like and pouring into it. After two hours I realized I'd walked him through my entire Recklessly Creative workshop.

"You have to do something," I told him. "Say what you want, see your end goal, and get after it. If you're proactive and honest with yourself, whatever you need to see that goal through will show up."

"What? Like it'll just drop in my lap?"

"When you're ready to receive it."

He seemed skeptical, but the more we talked, the more I could see the fresh spark in his eye—the potential of a purpose. "I want it now."

"Yes, but you're not ready yet."

"And when I am, it will just appear?"

I told him that ideas are gifts and that creativity is magic, and the more you reach for it, the more it shows up and the stronger and brighter it burns.

"That sounds a little bit..."

"A little bit woo-woo?"

"Yeah."

"It is. It's totally woo-woo. But it's not free. It's not dropping in your lap without an invitation. You have to do your part. Doo-doo makes the woo-woo."

We laughed. Because it sounded ridiculous, but it was also dripping in simple wisdom. There is no forward momentum without thrust. That's science. Magic can't work without first waving a wand. 

"Every step forward is an invitation for opportunity. The only way you can't progress is by staying still, by existing in your current unhappiness. You have to change the way you're thinking about the world and your place in it."

He wanted a clean answer and a smooth solution. He wanted a gift-wrapped ticket to happiness. I gave him homework. 

Doo-doo makes the woo-woo. If you want magic to believe in you, you have to show it that you believe in magic.

What are you doing that is disrupting the machine? Are you chasing after the thing that lights you up despite your fear? Be that ripple in the cosmos. Be the one that colours outside the lines. Be bold in your pursuit of what you want. Don't settle. Don't give up. Don't convince yourself that not trying means not failing. Your life might be bigger than the one you're living now. What is one thing you can do this week to get you closer to your goal?