Life Isn’t Magic

You don’t deserve anything that you don’t work for.

Life isn’t magic.

It isn’t a “miracle”. Or rather, you should stop thinking about it that way.

Think about it like this for a second: The only thing that is a miracle is your birth.

And what a slim chance it was for us to even be a reality.

And what do most of us do? Waste it.

Consider the Ant

“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.” — Proverbs 6:6–11

It took even God himself six days to create the world.

Yes, God.

And what did he do on that seventh day? He rested!

It was so much work that God himself needed a break.

Think about that for a second. I don’t care if you believe it or not, that isn’t the point. Just entertain it for a second:

If there is a God, and that God, the all-powerful overseer, works and rests,

we somehow think things will come to us from doing nothing?

We’ve Been Going About It All Wrong

And boy, I mean so wrong.

I believe that us dream-chasers have a problem.

I think that self-help/improvement has led us to kind of put life on this almost… “magical” pedestal.

I think that the whole motivation of it all, the success stories, the hoopla, just the whole way the whole thing is framed is…off.

All those things are true and I love it, but sometimes I have to take a step back from all of the self-help talk and readings and motivational videos and simply look at life in its organic form.

We are simply people living on a planet. There’s nothing special about it all as self-help puts it.

All of this researching and analyzing.

I’ve finally started putting what I learn into action, but I’ve still sort of thinking that a magical thing will eventually happen from all my “hard work”.

Yet, when I look at life, though beautiful and great and all of that, it’s also rough…and rigid.

I think I’ve subconsciously thought all this time that from doing the work I’ll get there.

That’s not guaranteed!

It can be, but I believe all of this “hard work” is so much more work than we are thinking.

You may be taking action and doing what you need to, but you need to be doing so much more.

Life isn’t magical. Nothing is guaranteed. It is very likely that you won’t get there from all that “hard work” you’re putting in.

Why?

Because self-help has us reaching so high — which isn’t a bad thing — but all of our dreams have become so much more ambitious than the work we are putting in.

I’m basically trying to say:

YOU ARE STILL NOT DOING ENOUGH.

You have to get up, suck it up, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and get after it, like the ant.

You have to work hard, very hard, and smart as well.

You have to make choices, not “sacrifices”, choices.

If it’s important enough it shouldn’t be seen as a “sacrifice”.

This thing isn’t magic. You are not…doing enough.

We are not…doing enough.

It’s more work.

Hey, I love the fluffy stuff.

I will continue to consume self-help and all of its advice, videos, research, whatever. But once I step out of that world I have to remember that this is life we are talking about. That that world is this world, not some grandiose alternate universe where you examine other aliens succeeding in a world unknown to you.

This information you’re consuming is your life we are talking about!

Yes, that same life in that success story!

These successes from others are in the same world that you currently occupy, not some success story that you “will take heed and apply to your life”. Absolutely not.

You aren’t applying shit. Your life hasn’t been on pause as you consumed this information to bring into your life. You’ve been living it already, my friend.

You’re living it. It’s real. It’s not beside you. It’s a thing you are currently partaking in.

That means that every bit of information you come across can be seen as “too late”.

And you are doing nothing about it. We are doing nothing about it.

We think we are, we think we are working “so hard”. Self-help tells us that hard work equals success right?

WRONG. That’s too…magical.

Hard and smart work is better, but even thinking that that will get you anywhere is too magical of thinking.

Okay, sure, you will get somewhere, and you may even be content there.

That’s fine, but it most likely wasn’t where you wanted to be.

We have to work so much harder.

Please understand this:

You don’t deserve anything that you don’t work for.

Your dreams are simply too ambitious for you to possibly think you’re doing enough.

This life isn’t magic. Life won’t guarantee our hard work goes anywhere. Only we can.

And the best way to ensure that is to do more.

Life isn’t magic, but it can still feel magical. The choice is yours.