Magic won’t solve your problems.

Many people get into magic thinking … well, thinking that it works like magic, some miraculous cure-all that fixes every problem with no repercussions. And they’re kinda right. But they’re also kinda wrong.

Remember when you were just a wee tot, tooling around the neighborhood on your bicycle? Your effective range of operations was a few blocks, then beyond that to specific destinations like the store or the park, and eventually a few miles. Maybe you had a basket or some kind of pack on your bike to carry useful items with you, and you got by with the limited space, and you were okay with that.

Until you realized that eventually you were going to have a car.

Then all you could think about was how limited that bicycle was – how slow it went, how it was such a drag going uphill, how you always had to ride all the way back even if you were tired because that’s just how you got home. And you wanted a car so badly. It was going to be the answer to all your problems. You could go FAST. You could carry lots of things with you. BIG things. Maybe even things you didn’t want other people to see. You could go anywhere you wanted, and take your friends with you. And girls would LOVE your car!

That’s the way magic is for some people – it represents power in all the ways they’re currently weak. All their shortcomings are somehow connected to getting that car, and then the car would fix all their problems.

That feeling lasts for one day, once you actually have a car.

That’s the way magic is for the rest of us. Yes, it offers a much greater level of operational power than a person is used to, but that power comes at a price. That car you wanted costs money for gas, money for licensing and insurance, time and effort on repairs, possibly getting stranded far from home, or it might get stolen. Magic also comes with its own costs, some of which are well beyond the means or ambition of the average person.

Magic won’t make you popular.

Except in certain very small circles, getting started in magic isn’t a very good way of gaining social credibility. More often than not, at best people will dismiss you as a harmless weirdo. At worst … well, let’s just say that situation can get a lot worse.

Oh, you’ll be popular enough with some people. Harmless weirdos, mostly. The self-proclaimed high priestess who read a book, the reincarnated Atlantean king who still likes to be called “Your Majesty”, the black-clad outcasts who spend their days smoking and listening to The Cure and their nights scribbling bad poetry in their own blood.

Magic isn’t “The Easy Way Out”

On the face of it, magic seems like the kind of power that would make your life a whole lot easier with little to no effort, like having “Cheat Codes” for a video game. How “easy” would that video game be, if every time you used a cheat code it took hours of careful planning, mapping out side effects, and making sure that all the conditions were as perfectly set as they could be? How “easy would it seem if, after all that, you could still end up back at square one?

Magic is a skillset that grants power, but requires responsible use and management. Mastery also requires a degree of training and effort most people simply aren’t up to. This is why, for the most part, using magic for mundane purposes often isn’t practical. That would be like training for years and passing the tryouts to make the football team and get onto the front line, all to obtain a football you could have bought for seven dollars at any sporting goods store.

Magic also comes with a whole new set of problems – problems you never had to worry about before. Training yourself to raise, direct and receive energy grants you a certain amount of control over it, but it also makes you susceptible to changes in your ambient energy, more so than someone without the same training.

Magic will make people fear and distrust you.

The first reactions you’ll receive when people discover you practice any magic-using tradition, religious or not, is that you’re delusional. At best, they’ll think “Oh, you’re doing some kind of daily affirmation crap that makes you feel good but isn’t MAGIC.” Then they’ll start to wonder if you’re crazy, or if you torture animals.

But at some point, this person is going to witness you calling your shots. Sooner or later, whether you mean it to happen or not, this person is going to see you do something. Maybe something BIG. They’re going to realize you’re not crazy, that you can actually perform what appear to be miracles.

This part is actually worse than having them think you’re crazy.

Once they realize you can do things, they’re going to go one of two ways – they’re either going to fear and distrust you, or they’re going to look at you like their own personal Magic Button they can press when they need to have something happen. Without any concept of magical exchange or the penalties of magical debt, they’re going to resent being charged for work. In any event, they’re certainly not going to be happy about the “New You”.

Magic isn’t a fashion statement. Magic isn’t a fun hobby. Magic isn’t something you should just do on a lark, or to be popular, or because you saw it in a movie. Oh my god, especially not because you saw it in a movie.

Magic is going to open your life up to a whole new world of possibilities, both good and bad. The only reason to willingly choose a magical life is because you don’t know any better or if you actually can’t choose any other life.

I won’t lie – its a good life. But damn if it doesn’t about wear a body down sometimes.