It does. It always works out. You don’t want to hear it right now. I know I rarely want to hear it when I’m in the middle of being terrified about some unexpected occurrence, large or small. But it does indeed always work out. The reason I freak out, the reason most of us freak out, is that when the unexpected does occur, it tears through our illusion of control. We thought we had it all perfectly planned out, the step by step process, the glorious outcome, guaranteed success. But the truth is, it rarely actually unfolds along that step by step process. Inevitable pitfalls, new players in the game, delays, you name it. The road is usually windy, with hidden curves and corners. The trick? Stop needing so badly to know in advance how it is all laid out.
One of my favorite writers, Brene Brown, is fond of saying she’s a mapmaker. She has learned, and she’s teaching others, the value of simply paving the way, walking forward, moving with grace into whatever comes next. We didn’t come here to follow exactly someone else’s map for how to live. And we certainly cannot create a map ahead of time, without having made our own travels.
Jeff Bezos is well known for his mantra “Stubborn on vision. Flexible on details.” Bezos has lost millions of dollars in failed projects and investments. Talk about unexpected occurrences. But he maintains his big picture on how he imagines Amazon. You will fail. You will fall. And you will get up again and keep moving forward into your vision.
The Perfect Life
Okay, I lied. You can actually plan it all out perfectly, based on what other people have told you, what you expect from life based on how you’ve seen others live, and then just follow the step by step process laid out by others. It works. I’ve seen it work for several people in my own life and across the globe.
Put your head down, work hard, do what you’re told (by someone else, by society, by your teachers, etc.), and you’ll work most of your life in a decent job for decent pay. You can take a few vacations a year, have a nice house and a nice car, and you can retire at 65 with a nice chunk of change to live out your days with your grandchildren on your front porch swing.
It is absolutely possible. I know people who play this game, play it well, and it works for them. Why? Well, it always works out.
Does It Though?
Does it? Does it actually work for them? I’m not sure. Most of the people I know who follow the rules are wondering where the happiness is that they were promised. Where is the bliss? Where is the big, heart opening, tear inducing, life they know deep inside is their birthright?
It lies outside the lines. The big epic moments of joy and thrill exist just outside of your comfort zone. They live in the unknown. They live in the discovery of the unknown. They live in the mapmaking. They are always always available to anyone willing to step outside those lines. And they feel elusive and mysterious to the unwilling. So those unwilling will convince themselves that those moments simply are not real. That they only exist in fairytales and other pieces of fiction.
Practicing Magic Amid Chaos
But what happens when it all falls apart? When the world ends? What happens with we’re forced outside the lines by cataclysmic events far beyond anyone’s illusion of control?
Magic.
That’s what happens.
Magic happens in the chaos.
These major world events, the Fall of Rome, the Black Plague, World Wars I and II, The Great Depression, hit a sort of giant reset button that shake up the status quo. They force us out of our comfort zones and straight into, for most people, abject terror.
But we can only be afraid for so long. We can only hoard so much. We can only live in a holding pattern “wait and see” phase for so long. Then we have to see our way out of fear. We have to work internally, within ourselves, for clarity.
And with clarity, we begin to practice magic.
We’ve never been here before, we must create a new normal from ashes and cinders. We must march forward and make our own maps. We must become the mapmakers we’ve always admired so much but never believed we could be.
And you know what that is? It’s fucking beautiful, that’s what it is.
Come Find Me
So go ahead and be afraid. Cling to the old normal as long as your tired arms will let you. Hoard supplies if you must. Freak the fuck out.
Then, when you’ve let go, when you can hold on no longer, when your brain simply cannot live in fear any longer, then, breathe.
Breathe, and know that it always works out.
Breathe, and come find me.
Find me or another witch, magician, spell caster, dancer with the divine, and let us practice making magic together.
Let us make maps, write new stories, encouraging each other along the way, trusting that your story is not mine, mine is not yours, and there is no one here anymore to tell us who to be or how to live.
This magic is brand new, and it’s just waiting to be breathed to life.