Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

by Elizabeth Gilbert

The courage to go on that hunt in the first place—that’s what separates a mundane existence from a more enchanted one.

Please note that my friend did not quit her job, did not sell her home, did not sever all her relationships and move to Toronto to study seventy hours a week with an exacting Olympic-level skating coach. And no, this story does not end with her winning any championship medals. It doesn’t have to. In fact, this story does not end at all, because Susan is still figure skating several mornings a week—simply because skating is still the best way for her to unfold a certain beauty and transcendence within her life that she cannot seem to access in any other manner. And she would like to spend as much time as possible in such a state of transcendence while she is still here on earth.

Dabble like it's your job

You can live a long life, making and doing really cool things the entire time. You might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognize that this is not really the point. And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.

He didn’t quit his day job to follow his dream; he just folded his dream into his everyday life.

If you’re supporting yourself financially and you’re not bothering anyone else, then you’re free to do whatever you want with your life.)

You do not need anybody’s permission to live a creative life.

I also want to live the most vividly decorated temporary life that I can. I don’t just mean physically; I mean emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. I don’t want to be afraid of bright colors, or new sounds, or big love, or risky decisions, or strange experiences, or weird endeavors, or sudden changes, or even failure.

It comes from a place of Hey, why not? Because it’s all just temporary.

Aspiring writers will often tell me, “I have an idea, but I’m afraid it’s already been done.” Well, yes, it probably has already been done. Most things have already been done—but they have not yet been done by you.

Everything reminds us of something. But once you put your own expression and passion behind an idea, that idea becomes yours.

Just say what you want to say, then, and say it with all your heart. Share whatever you are driven to share. If it’s authentic enough, believe me—it will feel original.

My point is that I wrote that book for my own purposes, and maybe that’s why it felt genuine, and ultimately even helpful, to many readers.)

I did not write this book for you; I wrote it for me. I wrote this book for my own pleasure, because I truly enjoy thinking about the subject of creativity. It’s enjoyable and useful for me to meditate on this topic. If what I’ve written here ends up helping you, that’s great, and I will be glad. That would be a wonderful side effect. But at the end of the day, I do what I do because I like doing it.

Huge.

Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart. The rest of it will take care of itself.

Take an honest inventory of the education you already have—the years you have lived, the trials you have endured, the skills you have learned along the way.

my twenties was too soon to start panicking about time running out.)

I held on to those other sources of income for so long because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life. I knew better than to ask this of my writing, because over the years, I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay the bills.

And when their creativity fails them (meaning: doesn’t pay the rent), they descend into resentment, anxiety, or even bankruptcy. Worst of all, they often quit creating at all.

I’ve always felt like this is so cruel to your work—to demand a regular paycheck from it, as if creativity were a government job, or a trust fund.

But to yell at your creativity, saying, “You must earn money for me!” is sort of like yelling at a cat; it has no idea what you’re talking about, and all you’re doing is scaring it away, because you’re making really loud noises and your face looks weird when you do that.

for the book

There’s no dishonor in having a job. What is dishonorable is scaring away your creativity by demanding that it pay for your entire existence. This is why, whenever anyone tells me they’re quitting their day job in order to write a novel, my palms get a little sweaty.

You can always make your art on the side of your bread-and-butter job. That’s what I did for three whole

books—and if it hadn’t been for the bananas success of Eat Pray Love, that’s what I’d still be doing now. That’s what Toni Morrison did when she used to get up at five o’clock in the morning in order to work on her novels before going off to her real-life career in the publishing world. That’s what J. K. Rowling did back when she was an impoverished single mother, struggling to get by and writing on the side. That’s what my friend Ann Patchett did back when she worked as a waitress at TGI Fridays and wrote in her spare hours. That’s what a busy married couple I know does—both of them illustrators, both of them with full-time jobs—when, every morning, they rise a full hour before their children awake to sit across from each other in their small studio space and quietly draw.

Do what you love to do, and do it with both seriousness and lightness. At least then you will know that you have tried and that—whatever the outcome—you have traveled a noble path.

It’s all just a game. A big, freaky, wonderful game. Which is fine, because the trickster likes freaky.

Your creative work is not your baby; if anything, you are its baby.

I don’t believe in telling people, “All you need to do is to follow your passion, and everything will be fine.” I think this can be an unhelpful and even cruel suggestion at times.

Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living. Curiosity is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Furthermore, curiosity is accessible to everyone.

The creators who most inspire me, then, are not necessarily the most passionate, but the most curious.

So whenever that brittle voice of dissatisfaction emerges within me, I can say, “Ah, my ego! There you are, old friend!” It’s the same thing when I’m being criticized and I notice myself reacting with outrage, heartache, or defensiveness. It’s just my ego, flaring up and testing its power. In such circumstances, I have learned to watch my heated emotions carefully, but I try not to take them too seriously, because I know that it’s merely my ego that has been wounded—never my soul. It is merely my ego that wants revenge, or to win the biggest prize. It is merely my ego that wants to start a Twitter war against a hater, or to sulk at an insult, or to quit in righteous indignation because I didn’t get the outcome I wanted. At such times, I can always steady my life once more by returning to my soul. I ask it, “And what is it that you want, dear one?”

Whatever you do, try not to dwell too long on your failures. You don’t need to conduct autopsies on your disasters. You don’t need to know what anything means. Remember: The gods of creativity are not obliged to explain anything to us. Own your disappointment, acknowledge it for what it is, and move on.

Einstein called this tactic “combinatory play”—the act of opening up one mental channel by dabbling in another.

In other words: If you can’t do what you long to do, go do something else.

might think it’s procrastination, but—with the right intention—it isn’t; it’s motion. And any motion whatsoever beats inertia, because inspiration will always be drawn to motion.

Fierce trust asks you to stand strong within this truth: “You are worthy, dear one, regardless of the outcome. You will keep making your work, regardless of the outcome. You will keep sharing your work, regardless of the outcome. You were born to create, regardless of the outcome. You will never lose trust in the creative process, even when you don’t understand the outcome.”

What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail?

So please calm down now and get back to work, okay?