Allow me to share a trio of brief scenarios that are united by a common thread.
First: Chores and Homework
How many times have you found a child on social media, or playing video games, or otherwise “relaxing” despite their not having done the chores and homework that were clearly assigned to be completed before playing or relaxing?
Second: Independence and Success
My friend Mark has a 23-year-old son, Kevin, who has expressed grand schemes to be wealthy, to buy whatever he can see, and to have a fabulous home and family. And yet, five years after high school, Kevin lives on the couch, surfs the Internet, and plays video games—no school, no job, no other activities.
Third: “Little” unkind moments
A mother overheard two of her children discussing the photos they were viewing on a social media site. Among the many comments were these:
“Geez, how ugly is that woman?”
“Do you think they have a place to lock up people that fat, so we don’t have to see them?”
“Look at those clothes. Nothing fits. Nothing matches. You think maybe she’s blind?”
Mother said nothing.
Magic Thinking
How are all these situations united? By a single theme, not immediately obvious: magic.
Let’s look again:
CHORES AND HOMEWORK. All children want to grow up to have sufficient means to provide for themselves—and perhaps a family—a nice home, good car, pleasant lifestyle, periodic vacations, and more.
And they know, vaguely, that people who have all those nice things had to work for them. They had to possess some degree of responsibility. And yet children routinely ignore all the steps that lead to the life they want, hoping that somehow in the end that what they want will magically fall from the sky into their lap.
INDEPENDENCE AND SUCCESS. Despite Kevin’s expressed desires for great success in life, he spent all day, every day, doing nothing, hoping that magic would intervene and provide all that he hoped for.
UNKIND MOMENTS. Every parent wants their children to grow up to be kind, loving, and good-hearted, and yet mostly they say and do nothing when their children consistently engage in behaviors guaranteed to produce adults who are critical, entitled, demanding, and otherwise selfish.
The parents—mostly unconsciously—are hoping for magic to deliver the adult lives they wish for their children.
Magical Thinking and It's Tragic Flaw
We have a desire for magic—also called magical thinking—when we want wonderful things to happen without any preparation or work on our part. When our lives aren’t going as we’d like, we hope magic will come out of nowhere to save us or make us happy.
Yes, magic can be innocent—like Disney’s Magic Kingdom or Christmas for a small child—but mostly another word for magic is irresponsibility. When I wish for magic, I want someone or something—real or a fantasy—to be responsible for my happiness.
And THAT is the tragic flaw in magic. As soon as I believe that anyone else—or any THING else—is responsible for my happiness, I’m believing in a LIE. Other people and other things are NOT responsible for my happiness. I am.
Not only am I believing in a lie, but I’m dead. If I wait for a rescue from outside myself, I make myself helpless and lost. I’m a slave to whatever I’m waiting on to rescue me.
The Desire for Magic is Everywhere
We live in a culture, for example, that’s in love with the idea of falling in love. Eye-twinkling romance dominates our books, movies, and songs more than any other theme.
And little wonder: Everyone who falls in love believes they’ve found true happiness—at least for a while—and those who haven’t fallen in love are certain that falling in love is the key to happiness.
Falling in love is almost always an enormous deception. Neither partner has ever received Real Love—which is the only thing that can ever make them happy—so they’re each desperately looking for someone who will magically make them happy with no effort of their own. In the beginning of falling in love, that actually seems to work, because the exchange of Imitation Love is intense. It feels great.
Gambling is another example of magic. Fifty billion dollars are wagered every year, legally and illegally. As of this writing, only six states refuse to sponsor a lottery. Las Vegas is founded on the promise that we really can get something for nothing. We gamble because we hope that magically we’ll be rescued from poverty, loneliness, boredom, whatever.
Another example of magic: we adore fairy tales or fantasy. There’s always a magic potion, magic wand, magic word, fairy godmother, or handsome prince to save the hero/heroine. We love those stories because we all hope for such things in our own lives.
I’m not criticizing this desire for magic. It’s completely understandable that we want good things to happen with no effort on our part. We’d always rather pay less for something than more, wouldn’t we?
And paying nothing is better yet. But there’s a deadly problem with this attitude because it’s not possible to give our full attention to two things simultaneously.
While we hope for magic, we WILL pay less attention to the effort required to learn to be responsible and do what it takes to find the things that matter in life—like Real Love. While we lie around waiting for magic, we grow old, lonely, angry, and bitter.
The Difference Between Magic and Miracles
To be happy, we must give up our wish for magic and be responsible for our own decisions. We need to exercise the faith to tell the truth about ourselves and find the Real Love that will bring us genuine happiness. We need to practice loving others.
If we exercise faith and keep doing the next right thing, we’ll discover the difference between magic and miracles.
Magic is an illusion and disappointing.
But miracles—unexpectedly great outcomes that follow our best efforts—routinely happen in our lives when we exercise faith and do everything we can to find Real Love and happiness.
Genuine happiness is a miracle, and that is something we can all find.
We cannot magically hope that our children will understand all this on their own. We must take the responsibility of loving and teaching them, after which miracles follow.
