I am hopping up to Manhattan for 2 days this week.
Revel in a bit of holiday magic.
The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. The windows at Saks. The ice-skaters at Rockefeller Plaza. The Union Square Holiday Market.
Memory links.
To 20 years lived in this magnificent city.
To Christmas pleasures that delight the little boy in me.
To memories of a fully lived life.
That's the gift of the season.
To know the magic again.
Christmas is a formidable reminder. I can know the magic anywhere, of course. But New York happens to overflow with the sparkle of it all.
Holiday magic is the easy magic, if you will.
I think of the rest of the year. All the time that you and I spend at work. When not every day glitters and dazzles. When traffic is a pain in the rear. When the demands of the mundane can render magic obsolete.
How do we know magic in the middle of a humdrum day?
It doesn't leap at us in the bold and brassy holiday way. It doesn't announce itself with carols singing and santa bringing gifts.
In the absence of external seductions, how do I experience magic at work?
Is it my intense, all-consuming engagement with a task?
Is it the fearless conversation I have with a colleague?
Is it the joy of discovering a new way of doing something?
Is it the thrill of completing a job?
Is it the reward of seeing how what I do impacts another
person?
Is it the simple satisfaction of knowing that I have done
my job well?
Christmas, President Calvin Coolidge said, is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind.
So is magic. Sensing it. Knowing it. Not letting it slip away.
Workplace magic. Everyday magic.
My job is to notice it amid the onslaught of daily distraction.
Not every day will bring magic. Not every day will be Christmas.
But why not bring to each and every day a magic state of mind?
Choose to notice. You'll have a little more Christmas sprinkled throughout the year.
Not a bad thing, is it?
