My journey with reading Big Magic

In the creative world, there are many obstacles and barriers one might find themselves in like writer’s block, unmotivated or uninspired, perfection, rejection, etc. There might be days where you might feel it’s not worth the time or even feel an existential crisis. Let me tell you that It’s normal to have those emotions and that you’re never alone.

Coming in terms with those complicated emotions is a journey and what helped me with that journey is reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.

I first read the book back in 2018. At that time, I was really lost and was trying to find my passion and self-identity. I came across this book on YouTube and it was mentioned multiple times by many youtubers that this book is inspiring and motivating to those who were in a self-discovery journey. I was very interested so when I visited Barnes and Noble, I picked it up and bought it. 

I got through the book very quickly and I remember putting sticky notes on pages where there were great quotes. But unfortunately, (I’ll be honest) I didn’t get anything out of that book. I actually wanted to return it since I felt it didn’t have the answer to what I was looking for. I was very lost back then and I had to go through soul searching on my own then looking for answers in a book. The book wouldn’t tell me what to do with life or know me, I only knew myself. Plus, I wasn’t in any way looking to pursue a writing career or any type of creative living until now.

Coming to late 2022 and present, I saw this book hidden away in a bookshelf and decided to give it a try again after discovering myself and realizing that I really want to live a creative life. So then I read the book and felt a spark and connection towards it which I didn’t have a couple of years ago. That was because it was more relatable now and I wasn’t looking for the answers in the book this time, but just reading it to change the way I think about fears and looking at creative living in a new light. I learned many great lessons that not only apply to my career but in life as well. Some things I learned were tackling my fears, trusting myself and my art/writing, dealing with creative ideas and rejection, and so much more.

I would recommend everyone, especially those in the creative fields to read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. It has a lot of great advice and life changing perspectives of creative living and life in general. To end, I’ll leave with one of many great quotes from the book.

“I believe this is one of the oldest and most generous tricks the universe plays on us human beings, both for its own amusement and for ours: the universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them” (Gilbert, Big Magic)

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Author

Khansa Samreen