I'm sure you've heard of all the excitement over the Harry Potter books. It's quite amazing, isn't it? In the years of 1999 and 2000 my own children disappeared for days at a time into their bedroom, or should I say into the world of Harry Potter!
Finally I decided to see if I could understand all the excitement. When my husband, Jim, and I went out to visit our newborn niece, I took Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone along for reading material.
In no time I found my bottom stuck to a couch and my eyes glued to this book. I concluded that the author, J.K. Rowling, has an uncanny knack for ending each chapter with enough suspense to drive the reader either to madness or the next chapter.
However, the most fascinating aspect of this series of books is the story behind the story. Supposedly only a few years before this "Harry Potter fame," J.K. Rowling was a struggling single parent in England. One day she jotted down her original thoughts for the series on a napkin in a coffee shop. Today she is the wealthiest woman in all of England.
Rowling's story is one of tremendous inspiration, and not because she was without money and now she has millions. Consider that there's really not much difference from the man living on the street and the man living in Beverly Hills. The first worries about acquiring the finer things in life while the latter stresses over keeping them. In the end, both stress over material things, so their mental state is truly quite similar.
No, the most amazing condition of this story has nothing to do with money.
The ultimate inspiration found in J.K. Rowling's story is the fortitude she demonstrated by taking that bold step into the unknown the step that she surely didn't believe she could take. How does one go from jotting down some ideas for a book on a coffee napkin to publishing a worldwide sensation?
Luck is not involved. Even skill isn't what's most needed. I'd be willing to bet there are thousands of most skillful and talented, yet unpublished authors.
Like the amazing J.K. Rowling, we create our own sensation only by taking step after step into the unknown. We achieve the extraordinary by understanding that without risk, change is impossible. By ignoring the illusionary shackles around our secret desires, we discover that nothing ever confined us but our own limited view.
When we dare to let go of who we think we are, we encounter the simplicity and beauty in our true selfhood, and become more than we ever dreamed possible. Once we defy the voice in our head that portends we are afraid, we'll find more magic than Harry Potter ever did even at wizardry school!
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