Becoming Harry Potter: Believing in your magic
Hagrid,” he [Harry] said quietly, “I think you must have made a mistake. I don’t think I can be a wizard.”
To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.
“Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?”
Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it…
SS/PS
Harry discovered he was a wizard. Hagrid busted down his door and delivered his letter to Hogwarts, but he struggled to believe that he is magical. There must be some mistake. How can he, a less than ordinary boy, be something as special as a wizard? And even if he is, how will he keep up in a world of kids who have known magic since they were born?
Harry discovers he is able to do magic, but he has no clue how to do it well, and he doubts whether he will ever be good enough.
More often than not, if you’ve discovered your magic, you’ve probably encountered a moment of doubt. You think, I can write, but I’m no J.K. Rowling. Or I can paint, but I’ll never be Picasso. Or I’m fairly good at Legos, but I’ll never be able to build the Empire State Building. And you are right – you won’t. But what you will do is something no one else will do. You’ll be the writer of something. You’ll be the painter of something. You’ll be the engineer for something. Something that no one else will write, paint, or build.
If J.K. Rowling were the only writer, we wouldn’t have Hunger Games, The Fault in Our Stars, Divergent, Goosebumps, Anne of Green Gables, Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, or any other stories she hasn’t penned. If Picasso were the only painter, we wouldn’t have The Starry Night, the Sistine Chapel, or the Mona Lisa. If Homer Gage Balcom were the only engineer we wouldn’t have the White House, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or St. Basil’s Cathedral.
We are all given some sort of “magic.” Some of us have the same sort, but none of us will do the same thing with it. It is pointless to say we are not going to use our magic because someone else has already used the same magic better than we can. Of course they have. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have something spectacular to contribute. The whole wizarding world didn’t lay down their wands because Dumbledore was better than them. They did their magic in their way. That is why there is a “world” and not just a wizard.
Challenge: Be brave. Believe you can do whatever is in you to do. If it is to write, then write. If it is to paint, then paint. If it is to build, then build. Do what is in you to do—whether you are the best at it or not.
Do not fear, only believe.
Next Week: “Becoming Harry Potter: Joining Your World”
