Put simply: I am on a quest to fill my life with magic.

Since I was a little kid, I've been drawn to the mystical and magical: I was always devouring fantasy novels, delving into the spiritual and intuitive, seeking beauty through my camera and the occasional poem. When I was younger, I had this grand idea that when I "grew up," magic and beauty would be my operating system, that somehow I'd create a life that shimmered with art, adventure, knowledge, all the things my favorite characters sought out, too. I had dreams of being a writer, an artist, a DIY maven, and above all someone who lived a life to her own taste. 

But somewhere along the way, I became an adult with a life I didn't like. Nothing specific was wrong, in fact, I'm sure to the outside observer it seemed pretty great: I had just graduated with a master's degree in a field I loved and, even better, had a job in that field that enabled me to feel like I was making a difference in the world.

And yet.

My creative rivers felt dried up and barren. I couldn't remember the last time I had written anything beyond a few scrawled lines in my too-infrequently used journal or the last time I had picked up my camera with joy. I found myself staring into the abyss of a boring, "normal" adulthood, and I backed away, stomping my feet with anger: this is not how things were supposed to be!

I began exploring ways to bring more joy and creativity into my life: I signed up for a darkroom photography class and got behind the camera again, I started a new workout routine that had me feeling stronger and more capable than ever, and I decided that I was going to get a handle on my finances so that I could have adventures on my meager non-profit warrior salary. Even with all these changes, though, I often found myself wishing I could be someone else, someone with a richer, more adventurous, more magical life. My days often consisted of work, work, work, workout, TV, sleep. I knew I was capable of more, but the idea of starting on some big creative project was often so daunting, I'd sip on some wine and watch a movie instead.

One day, I was cooking and listening to the podcast Listen, Money Matters when I caught an interview with Nerd Fitness founder Steve Kamb speaking about his book, Level Up Your Life. His story completely captivated me: after years of wanting to be fit but never quite getting there, he vowed to make it happen and worked out a system for motivation using his background as an avid gamer for inspiration. Goals became quests for Steven and suddenly he found a way to make big things happen in his life, reaching his fitness goals, traveling around the world, starting his own company. Inspired, I immediately bought his book.

The concept of treating life like a game had resonated with me before: I remember seeing Jane McGonigal's wonderful TedTalk on the subject years before when I was struggling through a patch of depression. McGonigal used game theory to pull herself out of a deep depression, setting small quests for herself to motivate her to action. I thought the concept was genius and vowed to implement it, but as with most "to-do"'s on my list, just didn't stick with it. 

Kamb's "leveling up" system, though, is more specific than just "set quests" - he walks his reader through a whole system for structuring quests around big life goals, or master quests. I have always been a note-taker and list-maker, so the idea of breaking my desires into specific master quests intuitively made sense to me. However, where my lists always seemed to go un-used and un-accomplished, Kamb's framework builds a system of motivation into the note-taking so that our dopamine-craving brains are rewarded when we knock something off our list. When these list items are completed, you earn "XP" points (like a video game!) which can be accumulated to earn new tools for moving further and further into the quest.  (The full system is much more nuanced than this and Kamb is a great writer, checking out his book is encouraged!)

I found myself structuring my master quests around that old idea of magic. Magic means creativity, combining elements in the world to create something new: be that throwing things in a pot and making an amazing meal, letting words tumble onto the page to form a story or poem, or even just rearranging assets to allow for more physical or financial space for creation in your life, to me, magic is something you do. 

And so here I am: questing after the magic.