Welcome one and all, to the first blog of my new "Blog Site".
I have spent days trying to figure out what my first post should be. As I was writing out an outline for an upcoming show, it dawned on me that the best place to begin, is with the ending of my show. Those who have seen me perform know that I end almost every show in the same manner. I end it by letting the audience in on "The Secret of Magic". Actually, it is my understanding of that secret. So I will start by posting the script to the end of my show:
The Secret of Magic
by
Peter The Adequate
When I was a little boy, I wanted to do magic very badly… and do you know what? I did magic very badly. The reason I did magic so badly, is that I thought magic was all about me, all about showing everyone how wonderful I was and how stupid they were for not figuring it out. It wasn’t till years later that I realized that no one cared how wonderful I was and, quite frankly, no one liked to be told they were stupid. It took me a little longer to discover that if I really wanted people to watch me, I had to think about them and not myself. As soon as I learned that, a strange thing happened. My friends started saying: “Can you show us another magic trick? My parents started saying: “Have you met our son the magician?” People started paying me money to do what I enjoyed most. I was getting paid to have fun. That’s when I learned the biggest secret of magic and for that matter, the biggest secret of life. It’s simply this:
“Remember, it’s not always about you."
As a matter of fact, it’s never about you.
Learn this, and your world will be a very special place.
You see, each of us has been given a gift or gifts. We call them talents. When you discover what your talents are, your world suddenly is filled with color. But when you learn to use those gifts to make other people’s lives better, when you use them to make the world a better place…
Then You Have Real Magic.
So, that's how I end every show, but it's also how I start and end every day. I have discovered that focusing on yourself tends to magnify all of your woes. Allow me to give a simple example. If you have a pounding headache and you focus all of your thoughts on that headache and how much it bothers you, the headache seems to get stronger and stronger. However, if instead, you divert your attention and focus on some other project or task, it seems to diminish the effects of that headache. No, it won't necessarily make the headache go away all together. I suffer from extreme sinus headaches due to airborne allergens. In the past I have been know to spend days on end in bed unable to rid myself of the pain. I am not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point I came to the realization that if I get out of bed and focus on things other than the headache, the pain seems a lot more bearable. I also discovered that the best way to take the focus off of your aches, pains and woes, is to reach out and help others.
Some might say that means that helping others can be somewhat selfish, or at the very least self serving. They are right in the sense that the results benefit the person who is reaching out to help or benefit others. However, if the reason you help others is to benefit yourself, then your focus is still on yourself and all of your problems. It's like the experiment of the "Pink Elephant". If I were to ask you to try and not think about "Pink Elephants", you would be unable to do so. The very process of trying not to think of something, means that you are thinking about it. However, if instead of trying not to think of them, you instead tried thinking of something else, you would by those very thoughts rule out the possibility of thinking of "Pink Elephants".
I have thoroughly enjoyed the last twenty years of my life and have seldom been angry or extremely upset at anything or anybody. I am not trying to pat myself on the back and show how wonderful I am, instead, I am basking in the joy of my discovery that when you live your life to make the world better for others, your life improves to the same degree.
This is why I end every show and start every day by recognizing "The secret of Magic".